ISL Breakout Star Maddy Banic Announces Retirement from Elite Swimming

Maddy Banic, one of the biggest success stories of the International Swimming League, has announced her retirement from competitive swimming. The 25-year old announced her retirement after 16 years of competitive swimming via Instagram on Monday.

In the post, Banic thanked all of the teams she has swum for:

• Green Family YMCA
• The YMCA of Greater Richmond
• Quest Swimming
• The LA Current (ISL)
• Energy Standard (ISL)
• The University of Tennessee

As an undergrad at Tennessee from 2015-2019, Banic won 9 SEC titles, including an individual win in the 50 free as a sophomore in 2017. She also earned 8 career All-American honors.

She was named to the SEC Academic Honor Roll three times in her four seasons with the Volunteers.

Banic spent the first season of the ISL in 2019 as a member of the LA Current, where she didn’t make much impact as primarily a relay swimmer. In 2020, though, a fateful practice swim launched her into one of the most unlikely underdog stories in the three year history of the ISL.

Banic swam a 50.69 in the 100-yard fly in a practice swim at Tennessee, which was a lifetime best by half-a-second. When the video showed up on SwimSwam, it caught the eye of the Energy Standard coaching staff, who signed Banic for the 2020 season.

After ranking 247th out of 251 scoring swimmers in the initial ISL season, with just 1.75 points/match, in 2020 she jumped to 19 points/match. That’s in spite of swimming on an Energy Standard team where she overlaps in specialty with stars like Sarah Sjostrom and Femke Heemskerk.

Her season included breaking the American Record in the 50 fly in short course meters multiple times.

In 2021, she averaged 16 points/match.

Her last meet was the 2021 ISL Season 3 Championship in December 2021.

While Banic made a huge impact in the short course meters ISL, her long course results never quite put her in contention for major international teams. At the 2021 US Olympic Team Trials, she finished 41st in the 50 free and 37th in the 100 fly.

Banic retires as the #2 American all-time in the 50 fly SCM and #4 American all-time in the 100 fly SCM.

Career Best Times

Banic is planning to stay in Knoxville and finish out the season as a volunteer assistant and hopes to pursue a full-time coaching position next summer. She says that her goal is to stay in college coaching:

“I’ve really enjoyed working with that elite level at (Tennessee) and I’m hoping to stay in that environment,” Banic told SwimSwam.