Hello and happy Wednesday everyone!
Without a doubt one of the greatest decisions in my life was to pursue swimming. In high school, the collegiate level, and the professional level. The people I’ve met, the experiences I’ve lived, and the lifestyle I created has been second to none. I encourage everyone to pursue athletics to whatever level they can reach. I’d like to share a memory that I hold dearly, completely unrelated to an athletic achievement, that would never have happened without swimming.
I have been fortunate enough to represent Team USA and Badger Swim Club across the nation and the world. The last time I counted, I have traveled to 30 of the 50 states, and most have been for swim competitions, training, or appearances. I’ve also gotten to travel to Canada a number of times, and even go as far as Kazan, Russia.
Without a doubt the coolest experience in my swim career was traveling to Russia while representing Team USA at the 2013 World University Games. WUGs is pretty much like the Olympics, but for college aged athletes. The host country builds an entire athletic village (athletic stadiums, dining halls, dorms and more) and all countries bring full teams of every sport to compete for medal totals. I qualified and got to compete in the 50 free, 100 free, 400 free relay and 400 medley relay. I finished 5th place in the 50 free and brought home a bronze medal as a part of the 400 free relay. As amazing as racing was, that wasn’t the coolest part.
The dining hall was a cultural and athletic melting pot that was indescribable in the best of ways. Now if you know me, I love food. Almost more than anything in this world. This dining hall was HUGE, and lining the entire edge of the hall was free all-you-can-eat buffet style sections representing cuisine from all over the world. A local Russian area, a German section, sushi from Japan, pasta from Italy, Halal, you name it and it was there. Hysterically though, you could guess what the “American food” was. That’s right, the classic double golden arches, a 24/7 open McDonald's serving free Big Macs and French fries all day. Almost embarrassing, but I do love me my Big Macs.
Being the foodie that I am, I tried every single type of ethnic food and I loved it all. But this wasn’t the best part. The dining hall was the only place for the athletes to eat in the village. So, any time of the day there were hundreds of athletes, from every corner of the world, representing every sport known to man! Seeing the different body types between these athletes was amazing. Imagine a Russian male Olympic Weightlifter next to a Swedish female Synchronized Swimmer, or an Italian Soccer Player next to an English Fencer. Everyone was incredibly nice and outgoing. No one was shy, and everyone was trying to break the cultural and language barriers.
Two of my favorite moments were 1) as a bunch of us American swimmers were eating dinner, a Japanese team came and sat at our table with us. They tried to initiate some conversation, but we were not crossing the language barrier very well. After a couple minutes of the embarrassing struggle, American swimmer Austin Surhoff out of nowhere starts speaking fluent Japanese! No one knew he could do this, and everyone lost it. But both our teams had a blast getting to know each other through our translator. And 2) I’m not sure which team it was but again an American team started to sing Happy Birthday to one of their teammates. By the end of the song almost half of the dining hall joined in. It was clear that some countries knew the song but had no idea what the words were, but that didn’t stop them from being a part of the festivity!
The way the athletes put aside any differences, competitiveness and shyness just to come together and have fun was amazing. The games encouraged interaction between countries and teams, each athlete got country-specific trading pins and it became a game to trade with other athletes trying to deck your bag out in these pins from around the world. Also, each country got some amazing training gear and apparel. At the end of the games, athletes were all trading team jackets, backpacks, shoes, everything was fair game.
I’ll attach some pictures of the dining hall and the rest of the village. I will never forget this once in a lifetime experience, and I thank the sport of swimming for allowing me to take advantage of it. Again, I encourage you all to follow a sport to the highest level! The people you meet, the stories you live, and the memories you make will last a lifetime.
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