Simone Manuel Taps Into Self-Confidence to Win U.S. Olympic Trials 50-Meter Freestyle Race

The two-time Olympian looked to her past success to build herself up before the finals on Sunday.

Simone Manuel / Rob Schumacher-USA TODAY Sports

After a fourth place finish in the semifinals of the 50-meter freestyle event at the U.S. Swimming Olympic Trials on Saturday night, two-time Olympian Simone Manuel wasn’t feeling very confident in herself.

Having clinched a spot on the 4x100-meter freestyle relay, she was already headed to the Paris games—but not yet for an individual event. A disappointing performance in the 100-meter freestyle qualifier made it so that the 50 free was her last chance. So, she pulled out all of the stops for her last chance at an individual event on Sunday.

With a huge performance, Manuel won the 50 free and earned that hard-fought individual spot on the U.S. Olympic roster. The win appeared to come as somewhat of a surprise to the athlete, who stared at the leaderboard open-mouthed after her victory.

In a conversation with NBC Olympics after the fact, she admitted that she was, at least in part, surprised. “I put in a lot of work to get to this point,” she explained. “I wasn’t feeling too confident after last night.”

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But she wasn’t going to let that govern her performance on Sunday. “I spent a lot of time watching races where I won,” she said. “I really wanted to channel that ‘Simone’ because I know I’m a winner, and that’s what I did tonight.”

It took a return to her past success—which includes five Olympic medals—to establish the sort of confidence she needed to pull out the win on Sunday. So, that’s exactly what Manuel did.

In late July, Manuel will head to Paris to compete in both the 4x100-meter freestyle relay and the 50-meter freestyle.