Allison Schmitt

Allison Rodgers Schmitt (born June 7, 1990) is an American competition swimmer who specializes in freestyle events.

She is a four-time Olympian and a ten-time Olympic medalist.

Schmitt was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1990 to Ralph and Gail Schmitt.

Raised as one of five siblings in what is still her hometown of Canton, Michigan (a suburb of Detroit), she went to Canton Charter Academy for elementary and middle school.

Schmitt's father is a financial analyst and her mother is a system project manager.

Schmitt considers her parents to have been the most influential and helpful people in her life.

From ages 10 through 13, Schmitt swam with the Ann Arbor Swim Club (AASC) in Ann Arbor, Michigan (which, in 2006, merged into Club Wolverine).

He said she started to show real potential, later, in the spring of her junior year in high school when she went to a 2007 Junior National Team competition.

Calling it "her first real breakout swim," he said she went "from pretty fast to really fast," dropping four to five seconds off her 200-meter freestyle short course time of normally around a minute fifty-two seconds, down to around a minute forty-seven, thereby putting Schmitt in what Morgan called "elite company."

In her Olympic debut at the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Schmitt won a bronze medal as a member of the 4×200-meter freestyle relay.

"They are so supportive of my dreams and ambitions," she said in 2008, adding, "they have given me so many opportunities to excel in life and have set a good example for me to follow."

She has an older sister named Kirsten who earned her bachelor's degree from the University of Florida, and her Juris Doctor degree from the School of Law at Washington University in St. Louis.

Her older brother, Derek, swam for the University of Pittsburgh, and is an assistant coach for the Arizona State Sun Devils swim team in Tempe, Arizona.

Schmitt's younger twin sisters, Kari and Sara, played in the USA Hockey national championship games in 2008 and 2009, lettered in varsity both basketball and swimming during their four years in high school, and played hockey at Ohio State University.

She started swimming at age eight, saying she followed her older sister, Kirsten, into it.

"I thought about quitting," Schmitt said, "but stayed one more season and loved it."

Prior to settling on swimming, she said she tried soccer, dance, basketball, volleyball, softball; and though she said she had the equipment for hockey, she decided to swim instead.

Schmitt went to Canton High School in Canton Township, Michigan, from which she graduated in the spring of 2008.

During her senior year, as she continued to swim at what had, by then, become Club Wolverine on the University of Michigan campus in nearby Ann Arbor, she began training alongside Olympian Michael Phelps under the guidance of Phelps's long-time coach, Michigan Wolverines head coach Bob Bowman.

Before the Summer Olympics in Beijing, having ended his tenure at University of Michigan, Bowman moved to Baltimore in anticipation of being named the head coach and CEO of the prestigious North Baltimore Aquatic Club the following September.

Both Phelps and Schmitt followed, with Schmitt moving to Baltimore just after her spring 2008 high school graduation in order to train full-time with Phelps and Bowman during the weeks leading-up to the 2008 Olympics (at which Schmitt won her first Olympic medal, a bronze in the 4×200-meter freestyle relay).

After the Summer Olympics, in the fall of 2008, Schmitt moved to Athens to become a freshman at the University of Georgia, majoring in psychology, and minoring in childhood and family development.

She joined coach Jack Bauerle's Georgia Bulldogs swimming and diving team, following her competition in the Summer Olympics under Bauerle, who was the women's swimming head coach.

She participated in NCAA competition during her freshman, sophomore and junior years, ultimately becoming a four-time NCAA national champion by winning the 500-yard freestyle in 2009, 2010, and 2011, and the 200-yard freestyle in 2010.

While at college in Athens, Schmitt also became involved in Athens Bulldog Swim Club (ABSC) competitions on the University of Georgia campus.

During her first three years at the university, she trained with Phelps and Bowman in Baltimore only during summers, between semesters.

Four years later, at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, she won a total of five medals, three of them gold, in the 200-meter freestyle (in which she set a new Olympic record), in the 4×200-meter freestyle relay, and in the 4×100-meter medley relay (in which a new world record was set); and she also won a silver medal in the 400 meter freestyle, and a bronze medal in the 4 × 100 meter freestyle relay.

Schmitt was named SwimSwam's Swammy Award-winner for Female Swimmer of the Year in 2012.

In an interview during the 2012 Summer Olympics, Josh Morgan, her then-AASC coach, said there was no indication in those years just how fast she would one day become.

However, in preparation for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, she took the 2011–2012 school year (her senior year) off, and so did not compete with the Bulldogs that year; and, instead, she moved to Baltimore and trained full-time with Bowman and Phelps at the NBAC; which training consisted of at least four hours in the pool and one hour on dry land six days a week.

After the 2012 Summer Olympics, Schmitt returned to the University of Georgia to complete her senior year of college, She was the recipient of the Honda Sports Award for Swimming and Diving, recognizing her as the outstanding college female swimmer of 2012–13.

Following her return from London, Schmitt started suffering from depression, finding the increased public attention to be overwhelming.

Her anguish led to bad swimming results, leading her to not qualify for various international competitions.

She was a four-time National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) national champion in the 200- and 500-yard freestyle swimming events during college, and was a member of the Georgia Bulldogs team that won the NCAA Division I Women's team title in 2013.

After opening up her feelings to Phelps and Bowman in January 2015, Schmitt decided to attend therapy sessions in secret to her family.

At the 2016 Summer Olympics Schmitt won a gold medal in the 4×200 meter freestyle relay and a silver medal in the 4×100 m freestyle relay.

It was the first Olympics where she served as captain of the US Olympic swim team.

Schmitt was the only second-time captain for the US Olympic swim team at the 2020 Summer Olympics.

At the 2020 Olympics, Schmitt won a bronze medal in the 4×100-meter freestyle relay, swimming in the prelims of the race, and a silver medal swimming in the final of the 4x200-meter freestyle relay.

In total, Schmitt has won twenty-five medals in major international competitions: thirteen gold, nine silver, and three bronze spanning the Summer Olympics, the FINA World Championships, the Pan Pacific Championships, and the Pan American Games.