A Culture of Excellence 

Few sports teams achieve success in the way University of Virginia Women’s Swimming has. UVA has won 6 consecutive NCAA team titles, and its athletes collectively won 11 medals at the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. 

When a swimmer dives in for a race, they are alone in the moment, judged individually by time. It is easy to see how perfect of an environment this creates for comparison.

Everyday at UVA, some of the world’s best swimmers train together. When they arrive at competitions, they race those same teammates for the top spots on the podium and in the record books. Just last month, UVA teammates Gretchen Walsh and Kate Douglass traded the World Record in the Women’s 50 Freestyle. Walsh broke Douglass's 23.59-second mark from June 19 with a 23.55-second swim on June 28—just nine days later.

The 2026 U.S. Swimming National Championships, from July 28 to August 1, 2026, in Irvine, California, was no exception to this excellence. 

Healthy Competition

How do teammates maintain a positive and constructive culture while training together each day, especially when they know their teammates are the very people they are competing against for medals and records? We asked Kate Douglass and Gretchen Walsh. 

Kate Douglass: Cheering Each Other On

“Healthy competition is what keeps us motivated to keep working harder and pushing boundaries in [swimming] while still having fun,” said Kate Douglass, five-time Olympic medalist and 15-time NCAA Champion. 

Douglass finished 2nd in the 100 Breaststroke at Nationals. Opting for a reduced schedule in preparation for her upcoming participation in the 2026 Pan Pacific Swimming Championships in mid-August, Douglass’ only other race this weekend was a time trial in the 100m freestyle. Despite racing this event alone and not as part of the official championship program, Douglass posted a best time of 51.93 seconds. The swim ranks as the fourth fastest performance in world history and was less than a tenth of a second behind fellow UVA swimmer Anna Moesch’s freshly minted 51.88 second American Record, also set at this weekend’s championships. 

“Healthy competition is what keeps us motivated to keep working harder and pushing boundaries in [swimming] while still having fun.”

Kate Douglass

Kate Douglass: The Power of Supportive Teammates 

Evidently, some of the fastest swimming in history is taking place at UVA. It begs the question: What does the culture of their practices look like on a daily basis? 

Douglass emphasized how good her UVA teammates are at celebrating each other's wins. “We do a great job of cheering each other on in practice. Everyone has big goals for themselves and that collective drive and support for each other makes our practices fun and really fast,” said Douglass. 

She also emphasized the importance of having boundaries and leaving all the competition at the pool. “We can be competitive in practice and then hang out afterwards and not even think twice about swimming,” she explained when asked specifically about the support system she finds within the UVA team. 

Gretchen Walsh: Perception Matters

Four-time Olympic medalist and 25-time NCAA Champion, Gretchen Walsh has strung together record-setting performances. In the last meet she competed in, the Trofeo Internazionale Settecolli IP, in late June, she set the world record mark in the 50m Freestyle at 23.55 seconds. This weekend, she set a new US National Championship Record at 23.60 seconds, just 0.05 seconds off her world record.

Avoiding comparison when you practice with some of the best swimmers in the world, is “almost an impossible task,” Walsh said. For her, being able to reframe this competition in a more constructive manner is key to her process. “Everyday… we each have a choice in how we interpret these comparisons and let them affect us,” Walsh shared. 

For Walsh this looks like finding gratitude for all the talent she gets to train with each day and reminding herself of the bigger picture: Walsh and her UVA teammates are moving the sport of swimming to new levels each time they dive in the pool to race. 

The ability to rely on her teammates for support and encouragement is what makes the UVA team so special, Walsh shared. Echoing Douglass, Walsh shared how great her UVA teammates are at celebrating and lifting each other up. “That confidence [they have in me] carries into my performances in the pool and reminds me that I’m never competing alone,” Walsh said. 

Elevating the Sport, Together

The culture of UVA swimming is proof that elite performance and a supportive team are not mutually exclusive. In a sport like swimming, where a win can be decided by hundredths of a second, the ability of Kate Douglass and Gretchen Walsh to reframe competition as a source of motivation, confidence, and inspiration is a clear part of their winning formula.