If this is Matt Grevers’ last go-around, his fifth and maybe final Olympic Trials, then his wife — also a swimming icon around these parts — summed it up best.
Four years ago, Matt’s perspective had already changed; he and former UA standout Annie Chandler were planning a wedding.
Now they have a baby girl on the way, and real life is wedging in just a little more.
This could be it for the 6-foot-8-inch Gentle Giant, the final shot.
“It reminds him this is a victory lap no matter what,” Annie said. “Whatever he accomplishes this year is the cherry on top of a beautiful career.”
Leave it to Annie to put it in such poetic, aquatic terms.
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This time around is going to be different for Annie, too.
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Her career is in the rear-view mirror, but what a ride it was. Team captain and Pac-12 woman of the year for the Wildcats, 18 All-America nods, six NCAA relay titles, a team championship. In 2012, she finished fifth in the 100-meter breaststroke and 19th in the 50-meter freestyle. Annie knew it was her time — “either after the trials or the Olympics, I was done,” she says — and theirs was very much an I-push-you, you-push-me relationship.
Quickly, she shifted into support mode.
“My specialty was breaststroke, his is backstroke, so I kind of watch him in awe and I don’t have a critical eye for it,” she said. “I don’t swim it vicariously. (But watching) is the biggest challenge. I told Matt, I wish I could swim 50 (meters) of your race for you. The hardest part is not being able to control anything.”
Matt, 31, now has that control.
He enters the 2016 trials, which begin on Sunday and continue throughout the week, in hopes of representing the United States once more at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics. The expectations are no smaller.
“There is no dilution of the significance to this at all,” he said. “If anything it’s heightened. I understand how difficult it was to make it the other times. … It does feel the same. It probably is my last Olympics, and I guess it makes it special. It’s my last hurrah. I don’t want to miss an opportunity that’s been given to me.”
Sixteen years after his first shot, Matt has the routine down.
He was 15 when he attended the 2000 Olympic Trials in Indianapolis. He swam one event, the 200 backstroke, and finished 64th out of 84 swimmers. Four years later, at 19, he competed in three events at the trials in Long Beach, California, qualifying for two semifinals and one finals, narrowly missing the cut in the 100 backstroke.
In 2008, he was 23 and with four NCAA championships and 27 All-American citations at Northwestern under his belt, coming off an intense training regimen in Tucson with Ford Aquatics and Arizona coach Rick DeMont. Matt said he was “hoping” but didn’t have any expectations for the trials in Omaha. That’s where he exploded onto the national scene once more, qualifying for the Beijing Olympics in the 100m backstroke and 4x100 freestyle relay and 4x100 medley relay. In Beijing, he won gold in both relays and silver in the 100 backstroke.
By 2012, he said, “I definitely had expectations. A little more pressure, a little more confidence.”
He delivered once more in Omaha, winning the 100 backstroke and placing third in the 100 freestyle and sixth in the 50 freestyle. He’d go on to win two more golds and a silver at the 2012 London Olympics, setting a new Olympic record in the 100 backstroke with a time of 52.16 seconds.
“In 2012, to be able to stand on that podium with that medal around my neck, knowing I did it for my family, my team, my coaches, my country, my fiancée, it was incredible,” he said. “Instead of double the fun, it’s 30 times the fun.”
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Theirs remains very much a partnership.
If anyone understands the pressures Matt is under, the rigor of his training, what it takes to get to the top and stay at the top, it’s Annie.
“Annie is incredibly understanding of everything that swimming demands,” said Matt, who proposed on a podium after winning the Missouri Gran Prix 100 backstroke just before Valentine’s Day 2012. “She’s been at the top herself, so she knows what that like. I’m a different swimmer than she was, and she knows I need copious amounts of confidence, and she gives it to me.”
If this is indeed Matt’s last run at the Olympics, Annie will be the perfect sounding board for the next stage, too.
“When you’re in the sports world, it doesn’t matter the sport you’re in; it is your world,” she said. “It’s what you do, it’s how you identify yourself. Everyone goes through a floundering stage, and I definitely went through that. At this point, there is so much more — I wish I could inject this perspective into my mind after my last race. It feels like an earth-shattering moment, but it only gives you more perspective.”
They’re enjoying this one time a little more, too. Impending parenthood gives it a bit of a special meaning.
“It really is amazing to think back,” Annie said. “We were both kids — he was 23, I was 21 — when we started dating, and trials were his full focus. He was on a ramen noodle diet. That was a life-changing year from him, and I think he’s done great things with the platform he’s been given.”
Soon the little one-person fan club will grow by one, though to be fair, it’s always been bigger than just a one-person fan club.
Annie recently had some “Team Grevers” T-shirts made up for the Olympic Trials run, and after posting a picture on Facebook, friends and family started asking for one. Annie put out a message on Facebook seeing if anyone else wanted a shirt — 95 orders later, “It was a little bit of a logistical nightmare for me. I just won’t advertise on Facebook again.”
It’s clear that Matt appreciates the support, too.
“Look, you go on a vacation, you don’t want to go by yourself,” he said. “It is so much more fun to accomplish things with a partner. I do feel that way — we’re a group.
“It’s Team Grevers, as the shirt says.”
