Every kid grows up dreaming of the Olympics
and I kind of had my idea in my mind of what it would be like
but it's so much more amazing than I could have thought
I didn't even think I was gonna try out for the Olympics
for the third time and thought i was going to be done in 2014
and then you know to win a medal in my first race in the Olympics was awesome
and then to feed off of my teammates' swims
and then to go out with a gold in my final race, it just
no, I never ever thought that this would happen
I know at the turn she was ahead of me
and then I knew she even got further ahead of me off the underwater
but that was the last time I ever had to use my legs in a race and darnnit
if I didn't, you know, give it everything I had and then when you look up and you see
six 100s you know that it's, it's all those little tiny precise things that come to
add up to to a gold medal by six 100s
You dream about it. I had let it go through my head just a little bit
earlier that day like what would it be like if I won and then to look up and
see that it's reality and that I'm living it at that moment
I just didn't know what to do and I was so thrilled to be up there
to the people that say I could stick around and maybe win more medals
and do it again in four years
they might be right, I maybe could, but it's a beautiful thing to achieve everything
you wanted and more, and I'm really excited to to try new things
and to go for new goals
This has been the most incredible experience of my life
and I'm so grateful that I got to have it
and now it's time for for new chapters