In the last ten days, it's hard to find an athlete that's shined on the world stage than Lakeville's Regan Smith.
"This is the gold medal," Smith said, pulling out one of two medals she just unpacked from her trip to World Championships in South Korea. "I think it's really, really cool. It's starting to sink in now I think. It's something that I've talked about and dreamed about, for a very long time."
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Smith has dominated swimmers her age for years and competed in Olympic Trials at just 14 year old, but even she didn't anticipate that, at 18, she'd shatter a world record in the 200 meter backstroke, set by one of her idols, Olympian Missy Franklin.
Kent Erdahl: "Did you realize what you were capable of?"
Regan Smith: "No. I did not. Even during the race where I set the world record in the 200 back, I did not think that I was going that fast."
Smith shattered the record set by multiple Olympic gold medalist, Missy Franklin. After the race, Franklin congratulated Smith on Twitter and also reached out personally.
"That was really exciting for me to get that from her just because I've looked up to her for so long," Smith said. "She said she's always there for me if I need anything which meant the world, I know she means it which is awesome."
Kent Erdahl: "Do you feel like things really changed for you personally after that first World Record?"
Regan Smith: "Going into finals, I was still really, really nervous. I was like, I don't know. Can I do that again? Was that just some fluke?"
It wasn't a fluke. The next day Smith officially stood alone as world champion after nearly breaking her own world record.
"At the medal ceremony, when they put it around my neck, I was like 'Wow!'" she said. "I knew when I was up there I need to savor this. It was really, really cool."
And to make it cooler that performance earned her a spot on team USA's 400 medley relay team, where, in the first leg, she broke another world record in the 100 meter backstroke.
"I was really excited to touch the wall and see what I was able to do, and I was really, really happy when I finished," Smith said. "I believed it that time. I didn't believe the 200, but I believed the 100."
She took that confidence back to the US with her, and a few days later she competed in nationals. Though she didn't compete in the backstroke, she won her first national title in the 200 butterfly.
Now she's setting her sights on making the Olympic team, and hopefully competing for multiple medals in a multiple events.
"That is what I want more than anything and I will not forget that every day at practice," Smith said. "This was amazing but this isn't the ultimate goal. I'm still working."