Paris 2024, NA Day 7: With A Third Silver, Regan Smith Shows Shades Of Laszlo Cseh

2024 PARIS SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES

• Pool Swimming: July 27 – August 4, 2024
  • Open Water Swimming: August 8 – 9, 2024
• La Défense Arena — Paris, France
• LCM (50 meters)
• Meet Central
• Full Swimming Schedule
• SwimSwam Preview Index
• Pick ’em Contest
• How To Watch
• Entry Lists
• Live Results
• Prelims Live Recaps: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7
• Finals Live Recaps: Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7

Hungary’s Laszlo Cseh is often regarded as one of the greatest swimmers to never win an Olympic gold medal. As a butterfly and IM specialist, he clocked some of the fastest times in the history of his events (including three European records), but never won Olympic gold. Unfortunately, he raced the same events as Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte, who were two of the best swimmers in history and constantly prevented Cseh from reaching the top.

A generation later, we are seeing a similar career play out for American swimmer Regan Smith. She just picked up her third individual silver medal of the 2024 Paris Olympics, and her fifth overall Olympic medal. With six medals (five silvers, one bronze) at just 22 years, she ties to become third-most decorated swimmer in Olympic history to never win a gold medal, alongside Cseh (four silvers, two bronzes) and Australia’s Frank Beaurepaire (three silvers, three bronzes).

This stat isn’t meant to be a slight against Smith. It simply goes to show how consistently good she’s been without ever reaching the top. At these Olympics, she finished second to Australia’s Kaylee McKeown in the 100 and 200 back, while losing to Canada’s Summer McIntosh in the 200 fly. McKeown just happens to be the first female swimmer to ever sweep the backstroke events in back-to-back Olympics, while McIntosh is a 17-year-old phenom who got closer to Liu Zige‘s supersuited 200 fly world record than anyone ever has. These are the two best female swimmers in the world, and Smith was just unable to get past them.

It’s easy to say that all that glitters isn’t gold for Smith, just like it wasn’t for Cseh. But somehow, directly comparing them feels like a slight against Smith.

Because unlike Cseh, there was a point in time where Smith was at the top — in 2019, she became the first female swimmer to go 57 and 2:03 in the 100 and 200 back respectively. It just so happens that McKeown caught up and got the best of her in every single individual head-to-head matchup they’ve had since 2019. Similarly, Smith was the fastest 200 fly swimmer of the Paris Olympic quad until McIntosh beat her at the actual games.

In addition, McKeown and McIntosh aren’t exactly out of reach for Smith. She just set the world record in the 100 back a month ago, and McKeown wasn’t able to break it. Smith’s best 200 back time of this Olympic cycle (2:03.80) is just 0.08 off of McKeown’s winning time and 0.45 seconds off the Aussie’s world record. In the 200 fly, Smith sits just 0.81 seconds behind McIntosh’s best.

But it seems as if in every meet and every race, Smith’s competitions beat her out. And that just goes to show what separates a fast swimmer with a great racer.

That being said, Smith still has a lot to be proud of at this meet and this Olympic cycle. She broke her own American record in the 200 fly after adding considerable time from trials to Worlds in this race last year. She got over her mental block in the 200 back and got to race it at an Olympic Games. She broke her first world record since 2019. And more likely than not, she’ll still come home with a gold medal — the United States is the heavy favorite to win both the mixed and women’s medley relay.

Swimming is a cruel sport sometimes where not everyone gets to reach the top, even if it’s a swimmer as exceptional as Smith. But winning is in her — she just needs to put together a race to pull it all off.

Other Highlights:

• Caeleb Dressel, the 2021 Olympic champion in the 50 free and 100 fly, finished sixth in the former event and missed the final in the latter. Meanwhile, Canada’s Josh Liendo just missed the podium in the 50 free (after scratching into the event) and is safely in the 100 fly final.
• The Cayman Islands’ Jordan Crooks finished eighth in the 50 free final.
• Americans Kate Douglass and Alex Walsh, as well as Canadians Summer McIntosh and Sydney Pickrem, all made the final of the women’s 200 IM.
• The United States’ Carson Foster finished fourth in the 200 IM final. Canada’s Finlay Knox was eighth.
• Canada’s Kylie Masse won her fifth Olympic medal, picking up bronze in the 200 back. Meanwhile, America’s Phoebe Bacon finished fourth by just 0.04 seconds.

North American Medal Table: