American swimmer Missy Franklin spent a huge chunk of her life on the world stage of swimming, in spite of retiring at only 23-years old. For a 3-year period, she was as good on that world stage as any female swimmer in history, breaking record-after-record and earning superlative-after-superlative.
And while her time at that peak was relatively-short, she still amassed credentials that will put her down as one of the greatest female swimmers in history. It’s almost a throwback career of sorts – like some of the great female swimmers of prior generations, Franklin was among the best in the world as a teenager, had one huge Olympic performance, and by her mid-20s her racing career was over.
Franklin made her first big international team, the 2010 Pan Pacs team, at age 15, but came away medal-less. At that year’s Short Course World Championships, she took silver in the 200 backstroke, which was a scary proposition given how much better she was in long course than short course.
A year later, she scored her first international gold medals at the World Championship, including winning her first individual gold in the 200 back at the World Championships.
This week, FINA, for the first time, posted a complete video of that race, for the world to see.
After a 3-gold and 5-total medal performance at that meet, Franklin, still an amateur, went on to win 4 gold and 1 bronze medal at the 2012 Olympic Games, including a World Record performance of 2:04.06 in the 200 back.
A year later was her true peak in terms of being a globally-dominant force in swimming. At the 2013 World Championships, she won the 100 back, 200 back, and 200 free individually and was also on the winning 400 free, 800 free, and 400 medley relays. That 6 gold medal performance set the record for the most gold medals won by a female swimmer at a single edition of the World Championships. In spite of that accomplishment, Katie Ledecky, who was rising up to take the throne as America’s top female swimmer, was named Swimmer of the Meet after breaking 2 World Records.
As injuries beset Franklin’s career, she would win 2 minor individual medals and 2 relay golds at the 2015 World Championships, plus another Olympic gold medal as a prelims-only swimmer at the 2016 Olympic Games, but she never recaptured the form that she had during that 3-year period from 2011-2013.
Missy-mania was very real. She was everything in women’s swimming for a blip in time. Just because the career ended early doesn’t mean we shouldn’t remember just how incredible it was while it lasted.
i will never forget those 2013 Gold medal races …..amazing Performance . She must have been a nightmare on the relays for the Aussies squad trying to beat the Us at each one of them …..
Disagree strongly with the historical assessment here that Missy was “everything” in female swimming for even a “blip in time.” There were MANY great female swimmers and teammates around Franklin on just the U.S. teams alone (Coughlin, Vollmer, Soni, Schmitt, Ledecky, Hoff, Beisel, Kukors, Ziegler, Pelton, Bootsma, Neal, and Knutson to name a few.) Unfortunately, Missy’s own belief in “Missy-mania” hype and her resulting actions (as just one example, undertaking an unsuccessful 2014 vanity movie project) quickly took her in the wrong direction athletically.
In calendar year 2014, vanity movie project or back spasms?
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/20/sports/backs-spasms-trouble-missy-franklin.html
Is she going to swim Masters?
Also Van Rouwendaal got the bronze here…years before winning the 10km in Rio!! Swimming is a fun sport
That’s a heck of an event change! Good for her
One could argue that Missy Franklin and Katie Ledecky were the female contingent of team USA at the 2013 World Aquatics Championships with six individual gold medals.
I love how she breaks her goggles taking them off at the end lol
Missy still is and forever will be one of my favorite swimmers. She wished me a happy birthday over Instagram one time and I almost cried