READY FOR A BREAKTHROUGH

READY FOR A

Melanie Margalis is an Olympic relay gold medalist and a threetime relay champion at Worlds, but a podium finish in an individual event has eluded her on the world’s biggest stage. She finished fourth in the 200 IM at the last two World Championships and the 2016 Olympics, but after ranking No. 1 in the 400 IM and No. 3 in the shorter medley for 2020, her turn to win a medal for the United States could take place this year in Tokyo.

BY ANDY ROSS | PHOTOS BY PETER H. BICK

After establishing herself as one of the top IM’ers in the United States as an undergrad at the University of Georgia in 2014, Melanie Margalis had full focus on the 200 IM heading into the 2016 U.S. Olympic Trials. With Maya DiRado and Elizabeth Beisel leading the charge in the longer distance, Margalis had become one of the top 200 IM’ers in the world, finishing seventh at the 2015 Worlds and fourth at the 2016 Olympics.

After Rio 2016, Olympic gold medalist DiRado (200 back, 800 free relay) retired after earning silver in the 400 IM and bronze in the 200. The other Olympic finalist, Elizabeth Beisel, was on a farewell tour in 2017. At the World Championships in Budapest that year, Leah Smith made her 400 IM debut for the U.S. with a sixthplace finish while Beisel closed out her career in seventh.

Margalis was at that meet, capturing gold in the 800 free relay and placing fourth in the 200 IM. But part of her knew that she could have been a factor in that 400 IM race had she trained for it.

“After the 400 IM, Coach (Gregg) Troy pulled me aside and told me, ‘You need to start doing the 400 IM. You need to start swimming it.’ Jack (Bauerle) was telling me all along that I should be doing it, but when Troy added that seed into my brain, I was like, ‘OK, maybe I can give it a shot.’”

LONG AND COMPLICATED HISTORY

Margalis, who turned 29 on Dec. 30, has had a long and complicated history with the 400 IM, widely regarded as one of the most difficult events in swimming. She had made two NCAA A-finals in the event, finishing as high as third as a senior in 2014. Later that summer, she was third at U.S. Nationals, and had swum it periodically over the next two years, but hadn’t been up to speed with DiRado and Beisel, and elected not to swim the race at the 2016 Trials.

By 2018, Margalis was reluctantly training longer IM sets with Bauerle at Georgia and was consistently swimming under 4:40. By the end of that summer, she swam 4:35.50, ranking her eighth in the world.

Flash forward to 2020, and she had jumped to No. 1 in the world.

“There was so much work mentally to be done,” Margalis said of the longer race. “I knew in my head that the 400 IM would be my best event, but I couldn’t get there mentally, and it would just tear me apart. It was almost to the point where it wasn’t healthy for my mindset at meets for me to do it because it would just explode my mind. I really had to do work in seeing it as a positive.

“There’s also been so many girls who have stepped up in the U.S. in the 200 IM, and I felt that if I can have another shot to put myself on the team (by swimming both events), then I should take it. But it took a lot of work to get past my mental block with how hard that race is.”

In 2019, four American women were ranked among the top 10 in the world in the 400 IM. Margalis finished the year at 11th, but three months into 2020—two weeks before the Olympics had been postponed—she swam a 4:32.53 at the TYR Pro Series stop in Des Moines, Iowa. She led the world rankings by three-and-a-half seconds!

“I told myself all day that I needed to stop ‘being a baby,’ so that was pretty much my race plan,” Margalis said in her TV interview after the race. “At that meet, I was like, ‘We are going to go for it.’

“I just needed to go out there and push the front half. I was telling myself, ‘Don’t just swim an easy 100 backstroke in the middle— like actually put some effort into it.’ That was me not being a baby— actually doing the first half of the race.

“The 400 IM is probably the biggest reason I was the most sad about the Olympics being postponed because I just had that swim (in Des Moines). I was like, ‘OK, this is perfect timing. I won’t have to do another 400 IM before Trials, and I’ll go into the meet with a really good mindset.’”

Margalis draws a lot of inspiration from her American peers in the IM events, with names such as Emma Weyant, Brook Forde, Ella Eastin, Madisyn Cox and Ally McHugh all pushing her to be better. But one of her biggest inspirations comes from a rival that she has watched smash seemingly unbeatable world records during her career.

“The person who helps me the most in swimming is Katinka (Hosszu of Hungary)—just because of all the incredible things she has done,” Margalis said. “I feel that any time she is in the pool, it makes me want to be the best swimmer I can be just because of how good she is and how much she has done for IM events over the last five years.

“Every time she has been in major competitions since 2013, she has set the standard so high in IM...and you’ve got to love that! A 2:06.12 200 IM (2015 Worlds) is insane, and her 400 IM (4:26.36, 2016 Olympics) is also very, very insane. I would think that it’s not just me that feels so driven by her successes.”

SETTING HER SIGHTS ON 2021

During the pandemic, Margalis had been training with her club team, St. Petersburg Aquatics (Fla.), and long-time coach Fred Lewis. While there this past summer, she picked up little tidbits from Lewis that she took with her to the International Swimming League season in Budapest, Hungary.

“He gave me a lot of little things that I could add in my swimming, and I think that was really helpful. He made me work my underwaters more, and that helped me in the 400 free. Last year when I was swimming the 400 free in the ISL, I could not do kicks off the walls. I was just doing whatever I could to keep swimming. And this year, I was able to take two dolphin kicks off each wall in the 400 free without really having much issue about it.”

After only three meets in the league with the eventual team champs, the Cali Condors, Margalis had the top-ranked time in the 200 and 400 IM (SCM) as well as the 400 free. But with lingering concerns over her training and her health, Margalis returned home to the United States before the end of the regular season.

“Jack (Bauerle) felt it would be better for me to come home and train for next summer. (Besides training for the 400 IM), I had been having some health issues on and off, and Jack wanted to keep an eye on me. He felt me being away the whole season would be a long time. After the third meet, it became apparent it was time for me to go home and get myself straightened out to go into 2021.”

Now Margalis heads into another Olympic year in 2021, where she is hoping to qualify for her second team. In the 200 IM, she has been fourth place at the last two Worlds and the 2016 Olympics, and she would want nothing more than to break through and reach the podium.

“I’ve been stuck at No. 4 for a while. At 2019 Worlds, (Kathleen) Baker said something to me, joking about how many fourth places I had gotten and how the next time I would be due for a podium spot. In the 200 IM, I haven’t reached my potential yet.

“I’m still trying to figure out how to get there. I think it has a lot to do with the first 50—and once I can figure that out, I will hopefully earn a medal for the U.S. That would be pretty cool to finally do.” 

In 2019, four American women were ranked among the top 10 in the world in the 400 IM. Margalis finished the year at 11th, but three months into 2020, she swam a 4:32.53 at the TYR Pro Series stop in Des Moines, Iowa. She led the world rankings by three-and-a-half seconds! “I just needed to go out there and push the front half,” she said. “At that meet, I was like, ‘We are going to go for it.’”