Kaitlin Sandeno: Happiness and Persistence Can Produce Best Performances
Kaitlin Sandeno dove into the sport of swimming fast and furiously.
She began her senior year of high school with third, fourth, and sixth-place finishes on the sports’ greatest stage after competing in her first Olympic games at the age of 17. And Sandeno continued her athletic pursuits at the University of Southern California, hungry for more Olympic glory.
Very quickly upon her arrival on campus, she began struggling with shoulder injuries, a serious back injury, as well as a car crash the night before leaving for NCAAs, that put her return to the Olympic stage in jeopardy.
“All those different situations, you get the mental side where you’re like, ‘Dang, this sucks,’ and so that was challenging too because it was nothing I’d experienced. Mentally I was always just fired up and ready to go. And then, when all these things kept going wrong, mentally, it’s hard not to give up,” Sandeno recalled.
Sandeno refused to let injuries and setbacks get the best of her. Driven to represent her university and nation, she pushed herself to feel proud of the work she was doing in the pool. Her goal to make another Olympic team after her experience in 2000 served as motivation to push through the setbacks.
“I think swimming shapes us to be really determined individuals; to be in a sport where we just follow a black line you know, and the interactions are different from a team sport. You really are in your own head so I think that side of the sport really shapes us to be self-motivated people, then obviously my team motivated me and my coaches and the support staff that I had,” Sandeno shared.
This work ethic and commitment to always do her best paid off for Sandeno, who realized her Olympic dreams again, qualifying for the 2004 Games in Athens.
“Never ever giving up just led to an incredible 2004, and I look back on my swimming career and it (The Olympic Games) was just a magical swim meet for me. It was so bittersweet after overcoming everything and then to go to that meet, just really surpassed my own expectations really. It’s just such a good reminder to be in the moment and just put your emphasis on being happy and being healthy and good things will follow that.”
Sandeno finished the Games with a gold, silver, and bronze medal, elated with her successes.
Swimming threw challenge after challenge at Sandeno, and yet, she learned to live in the moment and persevere through it all. These traits have helped shape her into the driven and optimistic individual she is today.
“When I look back on my career, I did my best when I was the happiest,” Sandeno said. “In sports, it’s not always joyful, you know, there’s times where you’re just so beat up or you’re so burned out: there’s always something. But, when you change that mental side and you’re enjoying the moment and you’re happy in the moment that’s when I was swimming my best. You kind of have to go back to where it all started. I loved racing from a small kid and then when you get older, I think you have other things that kind of creep in your mind or other things that you want to do. But, in the end, it’s like when you kind of strip all that away you remember why you got into it in the first place.”
Happy swimmers are fast swimmers, and as Sandeno shares, when you’re having fun, that’s when the great things happen.
Beyond that, Sandeno learned persistence through her time in the sport that has translated to success outside the pool.
“One bad swim meet, or one bad race, doesn’t need to determine your whole meet and that’s kind of like out in the real world. One bad phone call or one frustrating zoom call doesn’t mean the whole project you’re working on is shot. It’s a mental state and it’s how you keep perspective – and it all comes down to attitude,” says Sandeno.
After making the decision to retire from the sport following Trials in 2008, Sandeno stepped away from the pool for a bit, wanting to prove to herself that she was more than just a swimmer.
“When I stepped away, it just made me miss it more, and made me so grateful for everything that I had gotten from this sport. I wanted to continue to give back in some type of capacity, like giving stroke technique lessons to children, or with the NEGU foundation. It was such a big part of my life and I’m forever going to be grateful for it,” Sandeno shared.
Sandeno is now focusing on promoting the sport of swimming and finding ways to create opportunity for athletes.
After Trials, tribulations, and Olympic glory, Kaitlin Sandeno completed her epic swimming career, walking away with much more than just medals and accolades. She is equipped with a work ethic and determination that translates to success in anything life throws her way. Whether she is the on-deck personality at U.S. Olympic Trials, the national spokesperson for the NEGU Campaign, the General Manager of the DC Trident ISL team, or author of her own book Golden Glow; the list of her impressive achievements are a result of the work ethic and fighting spirit her swimming career taught her.
“The hard work will pay off,” Sandeno said. “If it was easy everybody would do it but I just can’t stress enough that the hard work does show in the end. Even when there are times where it doesn’t seem like it’s going to, it will. Never give up. If you want something bad enough, just go for it and know that, in the end, you will see the benefit of the hard work that you put in.”
For Kaitlin Sandeno, she happily continues to go for the gold in all that she does.
Thank you – some interesting points.
Ms. Sandeno should be an inspiration to
all young swimmers who are crushed when they have a poor performance. Stay positive and enjoy what you are doing in the water.