I haven’t talked about it yet in this column, but I’m a part of the Stevens Women’s Swim Team. Swimming has been an important part of my life since I joined a summer team about 14 years ago. For most of my time in this sport, I genuinely hated going to practice and swimming for fun. I only stuck with it for one reason: I loved competing. The thrill of racing other people and pushing my body to its limits was addicting. I don’t know why or when, but at some point over the past two years, that all changed. Although I no longer dread practice, and I could lap swim forever without getting bored, I’ve fallen out of love with competition.
Still, as much as I dread the competitive aspect of competitive swimming, I’m still on the Stevens team for another few months, so I’ve been searching for the things that make this worth it (I promise this has something to do with being a girl). Over the weekend, I was at a three-day swim meet, and it was a struggle to get motivated for my races. One way that athletes get motivated is by creating competition within the team. It’s an effective way to improve performance for a team, and it used to work great for me when I was younger. It feels good to chase after another person’s times and come out on top. This weekend, my coach pointed out that another swimmer was creeping up on me during our races. An old version of me would have taken that as a challenge and focused everything on beating her. Instead, I only felt happy: happy that she was doing so well, happy that the two of us were going to score points.
One thing about the Stevens Women’s Swim Team is that we have a lot of girls who are great at the 200 backstroke. We usually stack A finals (the fastest, highest-scoring race) with majority Stevens women, and it’s constantly changing who’s the best at the event. The 200 backstroke also happens to be my best event. You could think of it as unlucky that I have so much talented competition. This weekend, we had seven girls score in the 200 backstroke, and afterward, in the warmdown pool, one of my teammates said, “Can people just stop comparing us!” and something clicked for me. I was happy that someone else felt the disconnect that I have around competing with my teammates. When you’re competing with someone, you’re rooting not only for you to do well but also for them to do poorly. It’s pretty simple what changed: I no longer see myself as an individual swimmer but rather as a part of an incredible team of women. When they succeed, so do I. The only real reason competing is still worth it is to see my teammates thrive, and I realized that a lot of the girls I swim with feel the same. When I go into a race with them, I don’t feel like there’s a pressure to prove myself, I feel supported. I know that they’re putting their all into the race, and I owe them the same to help score as many points as possible. So the boys can keep the comparisons and competition if they want to, I think that the girls would be much happier swimming as a team.
