Social Kick – Details, episodes & analysis

Three world records in one day?!?!

Superstar paralympian Leanne Smith may be on the best form of her career following her recent performance at the World Series stop in Indianapolis where she won 5 events and broke 3 world records in the 50, 100, and 200 free with all records happening on the same day! 

Following her diagnosis with dystonia, Leanne discovered swimming as part of her rehab but but the sport became an athletic pursuit as Leanne has amassed one of the most impressive resumes in swimming. Following her first Paralympics in Tokyo, Leanne smashed the 2022 Worlds where she won 7 gold medals! Then came a health setback that could have derailed her career, but she bounced back to make the 2023 Worlds team and still won a medal. Then came Paris where she won two individual Paralympic gold medals (50 & 100 free) and two silvers on relays.

Leanne is an inspiration and we had so much fun chatting with her and learning from one of the best to ever do it! Enjoy!

Team GB’s backstroker has arrived, and he’s one of the world’s best. Oliver Morgan has been on a rapid rise the last few years including an assault on the British record in the 100 backstroke and now has won the backstroke treble twice at his country’s championship meet. Only fully committing to swimming around age 18, the now 21 year old recently dropped his best time in the 100 to 52.1, close enough to taste a 51 second performance which few men in history have done.

In this episode, we chat with Ollie as he looks ahead to the World Championships this summer and discuss how he trains, what he’s learned from years of cycling and football training before focusing on swimming, how he assimilates into Team GB and the great potential for British medley relays.

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Iona Anderson is a teenage Australian Olympian and one of the best backstrokers in the world. 5th at her first Olympics individually, she came home with silver and bronze medals for her relay efforts in Paris. A native of Perth, West Australia, Iona grew up focusing primarily on gymnastics and didn’t even start swimming until age 12, so her rise to be among the elites happened quickly.

Perhaps this success in the pool comes from a short term focus, not being distracted by the potential she has down the road as Iona is simply focused on this season, in particular improving her skills off the block and the walls. Iona joined us from her temporary training base in Scotland but will return soon to her main base at the WAIS as she focuses on the build toward Commonwealth Games.

Enjoy and don't forget to subscribe for weekly podcasts and daily shorts! 

The best kicker in college swimming

Quintin McCarty, the 2025 ACC 50 freestyle champion, could be looking to sign NIL deals in two sports if the Wolfpack football staff needs any help in the kicking game. While swimmers are getting more athletic every year, we don’t often hear about swimmers with hobbies that could potentially unlock legitimate opportunities in other sports. Turns out, Quintin is pretty dangerous with the right leg. The takeaway: high performers enjoy the process of trying, failing, learning, repeating - and this might apply to their primary field (swimming) or any other activity. 

But for now, Quintin McCarty is focused on swimming, and that is great news for swim fans. Recently winning his first conference title, Quintin went personal bests in all his events at ACCs and is primed to rack up some points at NCAAs for the Pack. 

Quintin thinks he’ll still be in great swim shape for the next 20 years too. So, watch out Masters records once he’s done wreaking havoc on the college and international sprint game. 

Cal Poly just had its swimming & diving program cut. No other sport at the school was cut. The school president says it will take $25 million to reinstate the program. Current Cal Poly swimmers Jen Reiter and Sabrina Bell joined us to share about the situation they find themselves in, how it came to this, and to ask for help. While scholarships across the nation are being slashed, cutting entire programs is not what the sport needs. Plus, San Luis Obispo is awesome. The facilities are great (2x 50m pools). The team had a good year under interim staff. Would be a real shame to lose this one.

The SaveCPSwimdive campaign has begun fundraising and this is the gofundme link: https://www.gofundme.com/f/save-cal-poly-swim-dive Enjoy and don't forget to subscribe for weekly podcasts and daily shorts!

Chlorinated Claire Curzan comes clean about crushing kicks and coaches tricks. In her first year competing for UVA, Claire Curzan, an Olympic medalist and World Champion looks to be on peak form heading into the college championship season. Already an NCAA champion from her freshman season at Stanford, College Claire picked up right where she left off, breaking the NCAA record in the 200 backstroke in-season, building excitement for what may come at her first ACCs.

The machine at Virginia keeps rolling.

If you bought $100 of Chris Guiliano stock in ~2021 and held onto it, you’d be a very rich person right now. The man of many freestyle talents has been on a rapid rise dropping chunks of time like he’s 10 years old en route to securing 3 individual spots on the Olympic team last summer in the 50-100-200, the first U.S. man to do so since the legend Matt Biondi. Under the radar, Chris developed at Notre Dame, but following the sanctions on the program is now a Texas Longhorn and already among the all-time top 10 performers at UT after his first dual meets. Scary for what’s to come for Chris Guiliano as he says he wants to be the best freestyler in the world. Hard to bet against this guy now. We’re bullish

Fresh Wolfpack faces. Same Wolfpack speed. Leah Shackley and Erica Pelaez have been racing each other for a few years already wearing American flags on their cap. Now they are in college on the same team and thriving.

Backstroke prowess runs deep in Raleigh, so it’s no surprise these backstroke standouts found their way to join the bearded baron Braden Holloway to etch their names in NC State lore, but both have skills beyond backstroke and have already shown through the dual meet season they are key contributors for the Pack this championship season. 

Fresh off of a Dual Meet Attendance Record and in season best times, Camille Spink and Josephine Fuller of the University of Tennessee join us for a pre-championship season update. After a tragic start to the 2023-2024 season with the loss of Coach Matt Kredich’s son, the team battled through various ups and downs, finishing fourth overall at the NCAA championship.

This season, the Volunteer women are more united than ever, as they enter SECs and NCAAs with bigger goals than just attendance records. With more highs than lows thus far, will this be the year the Volunteer women crack the top-3 at NCAAs?

Enjoy a cheerful conversation about rivals in swimming, nose clips, and swimming for something bigger than yourself.

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A Legend Among Us Simone Manual, one of the best swimmers of all-time joins us to talk about life, swimming, and giving back. An Olympic and World Champion and pioneering figure as the first black American woman to win Olympic gold in swimming, Simone has quite the CV. But she is charging on, having recently kicked off her season with some rust-busting, “off” events and is settling into her new training base in Austin with Bob Bowman.

As one of the greatest “big moment” sprinters to ever stand behind the blocks, Simone surprisingly does not identify as a sprinter. She splits time among training groups and she shares some of the methods that have helped her achieve success. We also get to hear about how Simone is using her platform to celebrate, inspire, and empower both BIPOC athletes through the Simone Manual Foundation and female athletes through her work with TOGETHXR.

This was a fun one. Enjoy and don't forget to subscribe for weekly podcasts and daily shorts!