'Got my butt kicked': American swimming star Regan Smith admits Kaylee McKeown rivalry broke her mentally
American swimmer Regan Smith has revealed how her rivalry with Kaylee McKeown broke her mentally, thanks to the Australian's dominance in the backstroke.
The pair have sat clear above the pack as the best backstroke swimmers in the world, with McKeown beating Smith at both the 2025 Swimming World Championships, the 2024 Paris Olympics and the 2020 Tokyo Games in both the 100m and the 200m events.
Those results followed after the American 23-year-old broke the world record in the 200m backstroke in 2019 by just over half a second, and felt she was set to dominate the event for years to come.
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Gold medalist Kaylee McKeown of Australia, silver medalist Regan Smith of the United States. Xinhua News Agency via Getty Ima
However, McKeown has been the one to sit above the rest since winning the 100m and the 200m at the Tokyo Games in 2021. She even took the word record from Smith in 2023 on top of everything else.
The American swimmer admitted she was not mentally ready for someone to surpass her so quickly, given what she achieved in 2019.
"(The rivalry) has gotten lots of great attention. I'm really proud to be a part of it, honestly," Smith told the GMM Podcast in a fresh interview.
"It is funny, in 2019 when I did go 2:03 (in the 200m backstroke), Kaylee was silver and she wasn't under 2:06, right.
"You're sitting there so confidently like 'wow maybe I am entering this era of dominance, oh my goodness', but that girl is so tough and so talented and she's like 'nope, not on my watch'.
"She figured it out and has been so unbelievably incredible for five years now.
"I was not prepared mentally. I think I could have been prepared physically and then I just completely fell off the horse for a couple of years there, just because I couldn't handle that, just bluntly.
"I didn't have the mental fortitude to do it and so I just got my butt kicked for many years.
"And I know I have continued to just sit there right behind her for many years, but at the end of the day I am super glad people watch as closely as they do and again I think it's super good for the sport.
"But I think this is another point, it's like I was sitting here going 2:04 low in the 200m backstroke, 57.3 in the 100m ... and I think people look at that and all they see, from people who don't pay as much attention to swimming maybe, is the Americans getting silver, yawn, like, whatever.
Winner Kaylee McKeown of Australia and Second Regan Smith of United States embrace. DeFodi Images via Getty Images
"You have to understand that swimming is a time based sport. What Kaylee is doing is absolute obscene and what she's been able to do year after year after year is absolutely unreal, but 2:04 and 57.3 is also absolutely unheard of these days.
"That is so rare for over a decade. Any other year, any other person, if I hadn't overlapped with Kaylee, I would have had so much dominance, and that's not taking away from Kaylee and that's not trying to pat myself on the back, but that the competition is getting so unbelievably hard.
"We're up here head and shoulders above everyone else."
Smith has two Olympic gold medals to her name from the Paris Games - winning one for the 4x100m medley relay and one for the mixed medley relay - to go with five silver medals.
McKeown has five Olympic gold medals, with only one of those coming in a medley relay event, and one silver.