2024 TYR PRO SWIM SERIES – KNOXVILLE
- January 10-13, 2024
- Allan Jones Intercollegiate Aquatic Center, Knoxville, TN
- LCM (50m)
- Meet Central
- Psych Sheets
US Olympian Regan Smith will not race at the Knoxville stop of the Pro Swim Series next week, Swimming World is reporting.
Smith, 21, was entered in six events for the American kickoff in the run to the Olympic Games, including a predicted show-stopping matchup with Canadian teenager Summer McIntosh in the 200 fly. Smith ranked #1 in the world and McIntosh #2 in the world in that event last season, though it was McIntosh who won gold at the World Championships with Smith coming home with bronze.
Smith revealed in an interview last month in The Athletic that she tested positive for mono shortly after winning the 100 back, 200 back, and 200 fly at the US Open in November. That cost her time out of training.
Smith described the challenge of staying focused while battling illness, saying “It’s been really hard to stay positive when I’m not able to be at my best, knowing Paris is only seven months away…It’s honestly an ongoing battle.”
This is the second-straight season in which Smith had been forced out of this meet with an illness. Last year, she swam the first session of the meet, but then pulled out due to what she called a “stomach bug/food poisoning.”
Smith is not the only Sun Devil swimmer who tested positive for mono in December: fellow World Record holder Leon Marchand was also dealing with Mono last month.
Smith, one of the big US medal hopes headed towards the Olympics later this year, was also scheduled to swim the 100 free, 200 free, 100 back, and 200 IM next weekend in Knoxville. Racing is scheduled for January 10-13, and will still feature at least 18 other swimmers who have won Olympic or World Championship medals, including Katie Ledecky, Caeleb Dressel, and Kate Douglass.
Regan and Leon got it during the same time. Same training group to. This is a little suspicious…😏
Hubert could say something here
So is the high school BF no more?
LDR is very hard
That Hubert rumour at this point is based on a single insta story in which Regan played a tabletop game with Hubert and his family when they visited him for Christmas. But that’s entirely too much gossip already and I’m pretty sure Hubert also had the illness right after Leon did, so. They are all involved obviously (cue the love dodecahedron comment from below).
You’ll be fine, Regan! You’ll snap back and this will be a thing of the past shortly.
You got this! USA is rooting for you.
I hope it doesn’t affect her in Paris.
I want Kaylee to win, but I want her to win because she’s the best, not because the competition got sick.
Really surprised no one has blamed Meehan for this yet.
That reminds me: where on earth is relay names guy?
i wanted to ask the same thing but didn’t want to bring them back from the dead
i suspect their disappearance might have to do with stanford performing well at midseason
It’s funny how some users seem to cause a ruckus and then disappear.
In remembrance of:
Relay names guy
Vinay
Sleep Paralysis Demon
Were they all the same person?
They had different posting styles. Pretty sure SPD and Vinay got banned and I know at some point relay names guy’s posts were all on manual approval.
Relay names guy seemed to disappear soon after Fukuoka. I assumed that the nearly 4 minute margins in the Womens Freestyle relays were too much for him.
He had genuine opinions even if he expressed them in unrelenting, combative and sometimes vitriolic ways. I hope he returns before the Olympics; he added something to this site’s appeal. (Even Bobby Finke commented on him).
his comments were absolutely in bad faith. he blames everything on meehan even when it has nothing to do with him. if relay names guy was here now, he’d be blaming regan’s mono on meehan.
he also left these two comments about lilly king:
https://swimswam.com/2023-westmont-pro-swim-series-day-4-finals-live-recap/#comment-1185050
https://swimswam.com/2023-u-s-trials-day-2-finals-live-recap/#comment-1214479
*4 second margins
May they never return! 🙏🏻
Someone needs to cut this girl a f***ing break. Get better soon Regan!❤️
Dear Regan: you will be fine.
In 1984 Joan Benoit (Samuelson) underwent arthroscopic knee surgery just 17 days before the United States Olympic Women’s Marathon Trials were scheduled. She recovered quickly, and not only made the US team but went to win the gold in LA!
In 2021, Great Britain’s Tom Dean had Covid (twice) seven months before the Tokyo Olympics but went on to win the 200 free!
1960, leading US sprinter Jeff Farrell had his appendix removed a week before US Trials, but somehow made the team anyway, and went on to anchor the victorious US medley relay in Rome!
Go get ‘em Regan!
Closer example:
MOC injured her knees and two months later won 5 gold medals and broke the venerable 200 free WR at 2023 World Championship.
I’ll save that one about Joan Benoit for next time the trolls bring up Mollie’s knee injury.
Not to mention Phelps broke his wrist like 7 months out from Beijing. And, I mean my memory is a bit hazy but I *think* he was pretty decent in that meet.
Is mono ever a result of over training?
No. It’s a disease caused by the Epstein-Barr virus.
That would be like saying “you’ll get a cold from going outside with wet hair,” which all of our moms told us. Heck, my mom is a doctor and she still told me that lol.
Did you wear a hat outside?
Sometimes I did, sometimes I didn’t. It was during that era when those super long hats were the in thing. Mine was black and yellow striped.
With those Chicago winters you better have worn it. Frost bite!
I was the kid who wore shorts in January in Chicago and the school had to call my parents to make sure everything was okay at home.
I had one of those kids. Hey mine would see who had the best frozen hair by the time we got home from the pool Heaters werent very good in those old station wagons.
you would
great now asu’s gonna show up on the Flight Logs.
There are actually multiple viruses that cause mono. It is not just a result of EBV. CMV and other viruses also cause mono.
Overtraining can cause decreased immunity with frequent viral infections, so it can increase your risk of getting mono if exposed. It would be interesting to compare the mono rates for college/ pro swimmers to other age-matched groups who spend that much time together. Mono seems to be rampant on college swim teams.
It’s rampant everywhere. 95% of all people in the world will have had mono by their mid-20s.
The problem we in the high-income countries have with it is that we don’t get infected as young children but rather teenagers and young adults. As children, the symptoms are much less severe, as with many other children’s diseases. I had HFMD at 30 and I thought I was going to die… it was the worst I’ve ever felt in my life. So painful!
The problem with mono is that “normal” people just think it’s the flu and stay in bed until they feel better. It also doesn’t show up on a regular blood screen, you have to specifically test for… Read more »
Yea it’s called swimcest for a reason
Thats such a bummer
Any livestreaming?
I’m sure a link will be activated by USA Swimming just in time for the second or third Prelim event of the first day. That’s usually low long it takes for the cascade of angry emails to jolt them into action.