With Pride In and Out of Water, Erica Sullivan Announces Retirement

Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

With Pride In and Out of Water, Erica Sullivan Announces Retirement

Never one to bury the lede, Erica Sullivan bounded into the mixed zone Wednesday night and cut straight to the chase.

“I’m retired,” the Olympic silver medalist in the 1,500 free at the 2021 Olympics offered, unprompted. Like everything else with Sullivan, beyond the headline-catching joy was plenty of substance.

Sulivan made the final of the 1,500 free at U.S. Olympic Trials at Lucas Oil Stadium, finishing seventh in 16:29.88. She was well behind the pace of Katie Ledecky, with whom she went to Tokyo in 2021 in the first ever women’s 1,500 at an Olympics. Ledecky went 15:37.35. Katie Grimes was second in 15:57.77.

The 23-year-old had gone 15:51.18 at Trials in Omaha in 2021, then 15:41.41 in a superb swim to stick within four seconds of Ledecky’s gold-medal pace in Tokyo.

It was with sizeable understatement that Sullivan called it, “a good run.”

“It’s an honor to have the career I had,” Sullivan said. “And I feel like so many kids dream of hitting this point and achieving the things I did in my career. So the fact that I got to do it with the Sandpipers and with Texas, each stage and each team kind of represented where I am in the sport, I’m happy with it.”

Sullivan will scratch out of the 800 free at Trials. She had long telegraphed this move. She’s older than most of her college peers, and while she still has one more year of studies left at Texas and will remain part of its swimming community, she’s done with the pool, having twice deferred college due to COVID-19s Olympic postponement and the death of her father.

Sullivan dreamed of having her career end in the 1,500 at Olympic Trials, the place she first made her name at age 16. Being in the first pairing to swim the 1,500 at an Olympics, an event women were long prevented from doing on that stage, is one of her proudest accomplishments.

“It was such an honor,” she said. “And I feel I talk about that all the time that it meant the world to me, the inaugural 1500 and taking that spot in silver, and I still get messages from kids this whole meet, like, you’re such a role model for the queer community, for the Asian-American community, for women, and I hope that sticks with me for a long time. I don’t need to have the fastest time. I don’t even need people to remember that race. As long as I was able to make an impact for queer people in sports and make them feel comfortable, then I can leave as happy as could be.”

Sullivan will still be in Austin at the UTLA internship program in Los Angeles. She’ll apply to intern at the Richard Linklater Center in Austin. A film buff, she’s already started podcasts on a variety of non-sports subjects and, while she’d like to be behind the camera to bring a cinematic touch to events like U.S. Olympic Trials, film is where her heart is.

That heart has always been worn on her sleeve, along with myriad causes to increase inclusion. Her advocacy for the LGBTQ+ community won’t change now that she’s no longer in such a public eye.

“I just wanted to make it more inclusive because when I was growing up, there was no one,” Sullivan said. “I mean, there were rumors but no one was open about it. And so wearing it on my chest with pride, I know it’s 2024 and it’s starting to become more common and normalized but I’m going to preach it until I die because there’s a kid in Iowa somewhere, in Oklahoma somewhere, in Texas somewhere who is only gay kid on their team. So I’m going to rep it.”

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