In this GMM podcast episode, Hunter Armstrong opens up about the year after Paris, and it’s not the story most people expect. Fresh off Olympic gold and silver in 2024, Hunter assumed momentum would carry him forward. Instead, he lost his top sponsor. The financial runway tightened. Training didn’t get cheaper. And 2025 became a grind. At this point in swimming history, Olympic gold does not equal financial security. Now Hunter’s made a decision that’s making headlines on SwimSwam. Hunter will compete at the upcoming Enhanced Games, but he’s doing it clean. To be clear, Hunter will not being be geared-up using performance-enhancing drugs. He is remaining in the drug testing pool, and he’s betting on transparency, compliance, and the letter of the rules. Prize money from the Enhanced Games could help fund his training through the LA 2028 Olympic cycle. That’s Hunter’s calculus, but here’s the tension. Hunter does not have absolute clarity on how World Aquatics will interpret its bylaws. He’s read them. He believes participation without doping keeps him eligible. Yet the federation could view participation itself as grounds for sanction.

SwimSwam sat down with Nic Askew, the head coach for Howard University's swimming and diving teams (as well as tennis), who is coming off a historic performance at the NEC Conference Champs. Not only did the Howard men's swimming defend their team title from last year, but the women joined the party this year, winning their first conference championship in program history. As the coach of the only HBCU to field a Division I Swimming & Diving program, Askew knows how to put things in perspective. He knows that to win a team title, it takes a team effort. He wasn't shy about the fact that neither group had the top-end firepower in the pool of past teams. However, Askew emphasizes more than just performing for the clock. He tells his staff and athletes they have one job daily: making the team better. That can happen with effort during dryland, positive attitudes during practice, and helping teammates with their studies. Everyone plays a role when it comes to team success, no matter what times you're swimming at the end of the season. If you have an opportunity to score in a 400 IM B-Final, that is just as valuable to the team's performance as scoring in an A-Final of a 50 or 100 free. With this philosophy in mind, Askew got buy-in from his whole team, making sure everyone felt a part of something bigger than themselves. With both the men's and women's team races coming down to the final session, the belief in the team was what pushed both of these groups over the finish line first.

Today on the SwimSwam Breakdown, we are discussing last week's SEC, ACC, and Women's Big 10 Championships as well as previewing the Big 12 and Men's Big 10 Championships.

Today’s conversation is one I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. It’s rooted in a feature story that stopped me in my tracks when I first read it in our upcoming Swimsuit issue of SwimSwam Magazine (dropping March 29th). The piece is titled “What Remains When the Stopwatch Stops,” written beautifully by Anya Pelshaw. Anya's an exceptional talent, and she captured something rare in her interview. It's not just the résumé of a great coach, it's the architecture of a life built on belief.

Today on the GMM podcast we have University of Tennessee head coach Matt Kredich.

This week on the SwimSwam Breakdown, we preview the upcoming SEC, ACC, and Women's Big Ten Championships.

We wanted to catch up because Regan is one of the most fun conversations in the sport. She’s transparent for someone living inside the elite bubble. You can ask her about most anything, and she doesn’t default to clichés. That’s why we’re calling this episode What Does Regan Smith Think?

2x Olympic medalist Ilya Kharun announced earlier this week that he would be switching his sporting citizenship from Canada to the USA.

Carsten Vissering was an absolute force during his time in the pool. Breaking national high school and age records as a teenager, he went on to swim for the University of Southern California in college. As a Trojan, Vissering won an NCAA title in 2018 as a part of the 200 medley relay and 2 Pac-12 Titles. Once Vissering walked away from swimming, though, he wasn't done with elite sport. After aquatic retirement, Vissering still wanted to compete and ended up stumbling into bobsledding in 2022. He made the US national team and worked his way up the ranks until, earlier this month, he qualified for the 2026 US Olympic team. Vissering will compete next month in Milan Cortina dawning the Red, White, and Blue. SwimSwam sat down with the now winter athlete to discuss what training, competition, and the mental side of bobsledding is all about. Vissering details the nuances and hardships of the sport. He also tells his personal side of the story, sharing his drive to still compete, the will to learn and grow in a new sport, and the balance it takes to be a full-time athlete and work at a Big Four consulting firm.