Episode Details
Back to Episodes
Rhyan White Shares Her Story of Olympic Success Swimming Her Way to a Silver Medal
Description
Rhyan White is a Herriman native who is now among the best of the best in competitive swimming in the United States. That’s because Rhyan won a silver medal in the women’s 4x100-meter medley relay at the recent 2020 Summer Olympics. She also placed fourth in both the 100-meter backstroke and the 200-meter backstroke.
On this episode of the Supercast, Rhyan White takes time out of her busy schedule at the University of Alabama to talk about what it takes to become an Olympic athlete. Rhyan shares her experience at the summer games in Tokyo and talks about coming home to a hero’s welcome in Herriman.
Audio Transcription
Anthony Godfrey:
Hello and welcome to the Supercast. I'm your host, Superintendent Anthony Godfrey. Today we talk with Rhyan White. She's a Herriman native who is now among the best of the best in competitive swimming in the United States. That's because Rhyan won a silver medal in the women's 4x100-meter medley relay at the recent 2020 Summer Olympics. She also placed fourth in both the 100-meter backstroke and the 200-meter backstroke. On this episode of the Supercast, Rhyan takes time out of her busy schedule at the University of Alabama to talk about what it takes to become an Olympic athlete. She shares her experience at the recent summer games in Tokyo and talks about coming home to a hero's welcome in Herriman.
All right. We are here with Rhyan White, silver medalist from the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, and we're really excited to have her on the Supercast. Rhyan, I know you're busy with school. Thank you very much for joining us.
Rhyan White:
Yeah, of course. I'm super happy to talk to you guys and just let you know my story and I really appreciate you guys reaching out to me.
Anthony Godfrey:
Now you swam for Herriman High School for a year, is that right?
Rhyan White:
Yup. That's right.
Anthony Godfrey:
And now you are an Olympic medalist. How does that feel?
Rhyan White:
It's pretty crazy. Some days I wake up and I can definitely feel the excitement and some days I just remember I’m another swimmer. It's definitely exciting and I'm super grateful.
Anthony Godfrey:
As I was Googling your various accomplishments, you have a lot of medals in your life. You've held up medals of various colors over the years. Tell me a little bit about some of your other accomplishments.
Rhyan White:
I've been an SEC champ, I think it’s been two years in a row for backstroke. In high school I was swimmer of the year a couple of times. I've just grown up swimming and I really love it.
Anthony Godfrey:
What drew you to swimming initially?
Rhyan White:
My older brothers. I have three older brothers and an older sister and my parents kind of just had us all doing some summer league. Me and my sister kind of fell in love with it together, and so we continued on to do more competitive swimming. I just kind of stuck with it.
Anthony Godfrey:
At what point did you realize, ‘Hey, I might be better than some of the people around me.’
Rhyan White:
I think I first kind of talked about maybe being an Olympian, and that my goals were to do that and my dreams were, I think I was maybe 11 or 12. I had like a state record or something in the 50 fly. Then I think it really hit me that I could maybe even swim in college and really do this thing probably when I was 12 or 13. I swam at some meet in Salt Lake City, I swam a 100 back and my underwater had just developed so much that year and my coaches were super excited. I think I was always in love with the sport, but I think at that time I realized that I could really go somewhere with it.
Anthony Godfrey:
And you're 21 now.
Rhyan White:
Yep
Anthony Godfrey:
Tell me about your training schedule. How many hours at the peak, how much time hav