At Pan Am Games, 32-year-old Natalie Coughlin seeks one more Olympics
TORONTO -- Seven years removed from her last Olympic gold medal, Natalie Coughlin has all the things you might expect from a happily retired past Games champion.
Coughlin is married, has an impressive home on a large lot in California's East Bay, an appearance on Dancing With The Stars (and Iron Chef) under her belt and an autobiography on the shelves.
But Coughlin, who took home five medals from Athens in 2004 and six more from Beijing four years later, is not a former swimmer or a former Olympian. After under-performing in 2012 and managing just a relay bronze in London, she is back for another crack on the biggest stage of all, older (at 32) and certainly wiser.
"I'm still going," Coughlin said. "I'm still competing and the reason is simple. I have more that I want to achieve."
Coughlin had hoped for the 100-meter freestyle at the Pan American Games on Tuesday to be the latest step toward success in Rio de Janeiro next summer, in what would be her fourth Olympics.
However, after breaking the competition record with a time of 53.85 in the morning heats, she was outdueled by Canada's Chantal van Landeghem in the final and had to make do with a silver medal.
While a strategic component of her preparation, the Pan Ams were never going to be a primary goal for Coughlin, who also took silver as part of the United States 4x100-meter freestyle relay team on Tuesday, going into the final leg narrowly ahead of Canadian anchor van Landeghem before being reeled in by the rising senior at the University of Georgia.
With the Olympics little more than a year away, her focus is firmly on claiming more hardware to add to her collection. No other American woman has ever medaled in six events out of six at an Olympics, which Coughlin achieved in Beijing. She is also tied with Jenny Thompson and Dara Torres as the most medaled American female swimmer in Games history with 12.
The spur for what is surely her final tilt is at least in part due to the public reaction in 2012, when she missed out on an Olympic spot in her preferred discipline of the 100 backstroke, the event in which she became the first women to break the minute barrier in 2002.
"What was so frustrating and eye opening was that people were acting as if I was dying of cancer or if the world was ending," Coughlin said in a recent interview with former Olympic diver Laura Wilkinson. "That fact so many people expected some sort of total mental breakdown, I wondered if that was more a reflection on how they would react or if they really thought I was crazy."
There was no breakdown, but a detailed reevaluation of her training structure that prompted her to split with her coach of 12 years, Cal women's coach Teri McKeever, to the university's men's coach, Dave Durden.
Coughlin has found practice sessions with the men's group more to her liking – more strategic and less focused on competition – and has also prioritized fresh produce in her eating habits, much of it grown in her own back garden in Lafayette, Calif., where she lives with her husband, former swimmer Ethan Hall.
"I am focused and motivated," she said. "Everything is geared towards the Olympics and performing at the highest level I can."
TOP SHOTS FROM THE PAN AM GAMES: