Josh Matheny

Josh Matheny (born October 16, 2002) is an American competitive swimmer specializing in breaststroke events.

He is a world junior record holder in the 4×100 meter mixed medley relay.

He won the gold medal and the national title in the 100 meter breaststroke at the 2022 US National Championships.

Matheny was born on October 16, 2002.

His parents are Jeffrey and Kristin, who competed collegiately in swimming, and his sisters Abby and Meghan have taken part in competitive swimming as well.

He started swimming at the age of five.

When Matheny was nine years old, Dave Schraven took on the role of coaching him.

For high school, Matheny attended and swam scholastically for Upper St. Clair High School.

Additionally, he became the fifth American male swimmer aged 18 years old or younger to swim the event in less than one minute, fifty-two seconds flat, after Kevin Cordes in 2012, Andrew Seliskar in 2015, Reece Whitley in 2017, and Daniel Roy in 2018.

When Matheny dropped over 30 seconds from his previous best time in the 200 meter breaststroke as an 11-year-old to swim a 2:53.37, SwimSwam named him as one of their "Weekly Wonders of Age Group Swimming" for the week of July 23, 2014.

Come the fourth day of competition, Matheny won his first individual gold medal of the competition in the 200 meter breaststroke with a personal best time of 2:09.40, breaking his own National Age Group record by almost two seconds and setting a new Championships record, which broke the former Championships record set in 2015 by Anton Chupkov of Russia.

The sixth and final day of competition, August 25, Matheny swam a personal best time of 27.96 seconds in the final of the 50 meter breaststroke and placed fourth.

In his last race of the Championships, Matheny helped the 4×100 meter medley relay finish in a time of 3:33.66 and win the silver medal by swimming his portion of the relay, 100 meters of breaststroke, in 59.55 seconds.

Following his success at the Championships, Matheny verbally committed to swimming collegiately for Indiana University beginning in the fall of 2021.

Matheny's five National Age Group records between the US National Championships and the World Junior Championships earned him the Swammy Award from SwimSwam for the boys 15–16 "Age Group Swimmer of the Year".

At the 2019 World Junior Championships, he won gold medals in the 200 meter breaststroke and 4×100 meter mixed medley relay as well as silver medals in the 100 meter breaststroke and 4×100 meter medley relay.

He competes collegiately for Indiana University.

In October 2019, Matheny committed to swimming for the Indiana Hoosiers in college.

In the autumn of 2021, he started attending Indiana University where also competes as part of the school's swim and dive team.

In the 200 meter breaststroke at the 2019 US National Championships in Stanford, California, he broke the boys 15–16 age group National Age Group record with a time of 2:11.02, which lowered the record over two tenths of a second from the 2:11.30 Reece Whitley had set it at.

On August 20, the first day of competition at the 2019 World Junior Championships in Budapest, Hungary, Matheny broke the National Age Group record for the boys 15–16 age group in the 100 meter breaststroke with a time of 1:00.66 that lowered the record set by Michael Andrew in 2015 by two-hundredths of a second.

Later in the day, Matheny broke his own record with a time of 1:00.32 in the semifinals of the 100 meter breaststroke, advancing to the final ranking first overall.

The next day, August 21, in the final of the 100 meter breaststroke Matheny broke his own record again, swimming a 1:00.17 to win the silver medal in the event only behind Vladislav Gerasimenko of Russia.

Also on August 21, Matheny split a time of 59.31 seconds on the breaststroke leg of the 4×100 meter mixed medley relay for the United States, helping the relay win the gold medal and achieve a time of 3:44.84, which established new world junior and Championships records in the event.

At the 2020 Winter Junior National Championships in December, Matheny set a new National Age Group record for the boys 17–18 age group with a time of 1:51.38 in the 200 yard breaststroke, breaking the former record of 1:51.43 set by Reece Whitley in 2017.

For the 2020 year, Matheny was the only male American swimmer in the boys 17–18 age group to set a National Age Group record who was not competing in a collegiate program at the time of setting the record, an accomplishment that earned him the Swammy Award for "Age Group Swimmer of the Year" for the boys 17–18 age group for 2020.

In June 2021, Matheny competed at his first US Olympic Trials, the 2020 US Olympic Trials in Omaha, Nebraska, which were postponed to 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

He placed fifth in the final of the 100 meter breaststroke on June 14 with a time of 1:00.22.

The day before, on June 13, Matheny swam a personal best time of 1:00.06 in the prelims heats of the 100 meter breaststroke.

For his other event, the 200 meter breaststroke, Matheny placed 20th in the prelims heats on June 16 with a time of 2:13.88.

He did not make the 2020 US Olympic Team in either of his events.

His performances at the Olympic Trials as well as winning multiple state championship titles in high school swimming earlier in his career, earned him the "Male Athlete of the Year" award for the 2021 year from both the Observer–Reporter and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

For the award from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, he was the first swimmer to win the accolade in the 42 year history of the award.

Matheny started competing collegiately for the Indiana Hoosiers in the autumn of 2021, where he won the 200 yard breaststroke at one of his first college double dual meets in October, against both the Kentucky Wildcats and the Indiana State Sycamores, with a time of 2:00.69.

At the 2021 Ohio State Fall Invitational in November, Matheny placed second in the 200 yard breaststroke with a time of 1:53.03 and third in the 100 yard breaststroke with a time of 52.24 seconds.

Swimming the breaststroke leg of the 4×50 yard medley relay in 23.43 seconds on the first day of the 2022 Big Ten Conference Championships in February, Matheny helped achieve a time of 1:22.51 and second-place finish.

For the 200 yard individual medley the following day, he placed 26th with a time of 1:49.19 in the prelims heats.

Later in the day, during the evening finals session, he split a 50.76 for the breaststroke leg of the 4×100 yard medley relay to help achieve a first-place finish in a Championships record time of 3:00.95.

The third day of the Championships, Matheny swam a 52.13 in the prelims heats of the 100 yard breaststroke to qualify for the final ranking fifth, just 0.11 seconds behind the first-ranked swimmer.

He swam a personal best time of 51.65 seconds in the final to finish in third-place, 0.98 seconds behind first-place finisher Max McHugh of the Minnesota Golden Gophers.