Indiana University Athletics
DiPrimio: Everything Wrong Becomes Everything Right for Olympian Matheny
7/24/2024 6:38:00 PM | Men's Swimming and Diving, Women's Swimming and Diving, Olympics
By Pete DiPrimio
IUHoosiers.com
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Josh Matheny is smiling. This is good. It's great, actually, given the Indiana swimmer's previous misery, when Olympic hopes were rocked, when years of work were on the brink of becoming wasted.
They weren't, of course. Matheny is an Olympian for the first time. He will be in Paris for the upcoming Olympic Games with a chance at medal-winning glory, as have so many IU swimmers and divers, boosted by this belief in his 200-meter breaststroke opportunity:
"I can go faster than I did at the U.S. Trials."
Matheny speaks from a recent press conference at Simon Skjodt Assembly Hall. He has overcome doubt and disappointment to scale a personal mountain to get here. To understand how, consider one of Ray Looze's coaching goals is for his Hoosier swimmers to be at their best during their worst times, and then flash back to mid-June at Indianapolis' Lucas Oil Stadium, when Matheny did just that to become part of another wave of IU success.
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Who could sleep? Matheny couldn't. Who could eat? He skipped meals. He was too busy reliving swimming disaster, too caught up in U.S. Olympic Trials pressure.
Hopes of a double Olympic opportunity were down to the 200 breaststroke after 100 breaststroke disaster left him fractions of a second out of qualifying.
"I didn't sleep well," he says. "I was very upset. Everything felt numb, but I had the support of my coaches, my family, my teammates and friends."
Looze, one of the world's most successful swim coaches and IU's head coach, topped the support list.
"Ray told me, 'This can go two ways – you can either pick yourself up and show the world you're a fighter, or you can roll over,'" Matheny says. "I picked the fighting option and took it one race at a time."
Matheny had plenty of success to draw from. At IU, he is a seven-time All-American, two-time NCAA medalist and three-time Big Ten individual and team champion.
Still, he couldn't shake off his 100 breaststroke disappointment, when a third-place finish – his time of 59.23 seconds was just behind Nic Fink (59.08) and Charlie Swanson (59.16) – wasn't good enough to qualify. Only the top two make the Olympics.
For perspective, Matheny's career best in the 100 is 59.20, so it wasn't like he swam the worst race of his life.
Still…
"I remember sitting with him the day after and said, 'Welcome to the third-place club, of which I am a member,'" Looze says. "The important thing is you still have one race left. Let this go and move on. He did a really good job of that."
In fact, Looze adds, "He looked like normal shortly after such devastation. It's perseverance. It's getting back up. That's part of our value system."
Matheny had three days to get over the 100, and get through 200 qualifying before the final. Sleep and eating became challenges often unmet.
"A gut punch is a great way to describe it," he says. "Growing up, you always hear about the person who gets third, but never expect it to be you. To see it was me was heart wrenching."
And yet, Matheny found a way.
"Josh made every mistake you could make during the Trials," Looze says. "He did everything wrong. He ran race strategies I've never seen before. He took 27 strokes his last 50 meters. (Olympic gold medalist Lilly King) takes a lot of strokes, and that's more than Lilly."
And yet, he found a way. A conversation with King helped.
"In that first 200 in the prelims," he says, "I was more nervous than I would have been otherwise because my confidence was a little shaken," he says. "Afterwards, I got my groove back and looked forward to racing."
Matheny won his semifinal heat. Seeded third entering the 200 finals, he finished second with a time of 2:08.86, behind winner Matt Fallon's 2:06.54 American record, and just ahead of Ananias Pouch (2:09.05).
"He did everything wrong," Looze says, "and still made the team."
Adds Matheny: "It was a dog fight in the last 25 meters. I was thinking about how finishing third made me feel, I was thinking, I can't let this happen again. I was able to get my hand there first."
Making his first Olympics fulfilled a goal from when he became a Hoosier.
"I sat down with Ray during the recruiting process," Matheny says, "and he told me, 'There are no guarantees in this sport, but in 2024 I will do everything I can to put you on that Olympic team.'
"That's been my goal my whole career."
Now, at least, Matheny can sleep and eat.
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Anna Peplowski's Olympic opportunity comes after a record-breaking junior season at IU. Besides earning second and third place national finishes in the 200-yard and 500-yard freestyle races, she set program records in the 100 free, the 200 free, the 500 free, the 200 freestyle relay, the 400 freestyle relay and the 200 freestyle. She also helped the Hoosiers with their first Big Ten women's title since 2019 and record a program-record tying seventh-place finish at the NCAA meet.
She says inspiration came from fellow Hoosier Olympians Matheny, King and Mariah Denigan.
"We had a great team culture last semester," Peplowski says. "Winning the Big Ten Championship and doing well in the NCAA, and then carrying that momentum forward helps you stay motivated, especially surrounding yourself with other Olympians like Mariah and Josh. We have high-level athletes at Indiana University. It's dialing in on the little things like sleep and nutrition that tie into success.
"The best advice I ever got was to surround yourself with people who will uplift you to be your best. That helps you better achieve your goals. It's about staying upbeat and motivated."
This reflects a strong IU swimming and diving culture that began in the 1960s and continues under Looze and head diving coach Drew Johansen.
"When I was being recruited by Ray," Peplowski says, "one of the big things he talked to me about was our culture of long course and the Olympic team. Following that comes the NCAA season. We put a lot of our focus when it's an Olympic year on the Olympics, world championships and stuff revolving around the summer meets. During the year, we do a lot of long-course training which sets us up to do long course.
"I remember Ray asked me, 'Do you want to be an Olympian? Do you want to be part of a culture that develops Olympians and wins a gold medal like Lilly?' I did. This past year has been hard with training, but it's all worked out."
Added Looze: "We try to prepare them in practice to be very durable and tough. We make our workouts really hard, so that when we compete, we're prepared."
Players Mentioned
