Despite Crushing Disqualification, Alex Walsh Still Proud of Paris Performance

Alex Walsh -- Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

Despite Crushing Disqualification, Alex Walsh Still Proud of Paris Performance

Ninety-five percent of the way through the women’s 200 IM Olympic final, a gold medal was still within reach. An excruciating final 10 meters turned that gold medal into bronze but still good enough for a spot on the podium. Only as she made her way toward the side of the pool to climb out did Alex Walsh see the scoreboard flip. Her name was at the bottom, her best time erased and replaced with the letters “DSQ” while Australia’s Kaylee McKeown was now in bronze-medal position.

Yet days later, Walsh could still tell the world in an Instagram post that she was proud of herself and grateful for her experience at the Paris Olympics. She meant it, too. A heartbreaking turn of events, years of work aimed toward that moment all rendered null by a simple mistake, and the 23-year-old from Nashville still handled the moment with near-perfect maturity.

A few powerful conversations helped Walsh realize she had done exactly what she had set out to do in Paris. The lack of a physical prize, making her the only member of the University of Virginia contingent (four current Charlottesville-trained swimmers and one alum) to leave without a medal, was tough, but a medal was never the point, not in a race where she was facing three swimmers who had previously clocked 2:06s and had all captured individual gold already in Paris: McKeown, Canada’s Summer McIntosh and fellow American Kate Douglass.

“My goal going into the Olympics was never to medal because I just I didn’t want my goal to be dependent on what other people were going to go,” Walsh said. “My goal was to go a best time. My goal was to have races that I was proud of and that I could set up in the way that I had been practicing to execute.”

That was how Walsh processed the setback one month later. Initially, though?

“I mean, like, damn,” Walsh said. “You never think something like that is gonna happen to you until it does.”

The Dreaded DQ

The swimmers and spectators inside La Défense Arena learned immediately after the race of a hold on the official results, with video review pending. During that time, Walsh spoke with Douglass, one of her Virginia teammates and the silver medalist in that final. “I remember Kate saying to me, ‘Oh God, I hope it’s not me that got disqualified,’ and I looked to her, and I was like, ‘If it’s anyone, it’s going to be me,’” Walsh said. “Because if it had been me. I knew that that would have been the reason.”

Walsh did not remember the turn at the halfway point, when she rotated past vertical before touching the wall to complete the backstroke leg. Ironically, this was a turn Walsh had been practicing for more than a year, since three swimmers were disqualified in her semifinal heat for the same violation at the 2023 World Championships.

Alex Walsh — Photo Courtesy: Giorgio Scala / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto

The night after that, when Walsh took silver in the final, many viewers accused Walsh of rotating too far, although no call was made. Still, Walsh wanted to be absolutely certain she had the turn perfected for the Olympic year.

“I didn’t like that people were saying that my turn was illegal. I didn’t like that people were talking about me in that way. No one likes it when someone’s saying that about your stroke or your swimming,” Walsh said. “Day in, day out, I was really working on that turn and really making sure that it was safe and sound.”

But in the heat of an Olympic final, Walsh could not contain her curiosity. How was the race playing out going into the breaststroke leg? From her position in lane four, she sought a glance at Douglass in lane three and McKeown in one, and she thinks that caused her to over-rotate. Having watched the replay, Walsh calls the mistake “obvious,” certainly without any intent to gain an advantage but blatantly disallowed.

In that moment, the disqualified Walsh walked away from the public eye and sat down alone. “I didn’t even cry,” she said. “I just was kind of sitting there and I had no idea what to think.”

Her first thought turned to the lost prize money, but Walsh has done well enough through NIL sponsorship deals to pacify those concerns.

“More than anything, I was just embarrassed because I knew that this was something that people were going to be looking for,” Walsh said. “And honestly, when you’re representing at the Olympics and you get disqualified, all you can think to yourself is, ‘I didn’t do it right. I didn’t do this in the moment where I counted.’ And that is embarrassing.”

Accepting the Setback

When she returned to the U.S. team area, Walsh did not see Todd DeSorbo, her coach with the Cavaliers and head coach of the U.S. women. DeSorbo had gone to appeal the DQ (unsuccessfully) and then watch the U.S. team in the mixed 400 medley relay, an event where Walsh’s younger sister Gretchen swam a huge butterfly leg to put the Americans into a lead they would not relinquish.

When Walsh finally met DeSorbo, the two shared a “moment.” Walsh described his message as “what every coach would tell their swimmers” under such circumstances, that the DQ “isn’t a representation of the work you put in.”

Most swimmers would have tuned out, ready to be anywhere else with no further chances at winning a medal. Walsh listened.

Alex Walsh (right) with Kate Douglass at the U.S. Olympic Trials — Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

“Everyone was like, ‘Oh, she hasn’t gone a best time in two years. She’s not going to do anything. She’s not going to be competitive with the other three girls.’ And that was so motivating for me this year. Every time I’d be hurting in practice, all I could think about was people just saying that kind of stuff and how that wasn’t true at all,” Walsh said.

“So the fact that I was in the race, I was competitive, I was there, that to me was something that nobody can take away from me, even the disqualification. The fact is that I was in that race.”

Perhaps accepting the outcome was easier because she had done well but still not reached her highest expectations. Walsh swam a best time but not the 2:06 performance she had aimed for. The medal she lost out on was not gold. “It was kind of a medium where I was happy with my time, and I was pretty excited to be going under what I had been two years ago, but I know that I’m capable of more,” Walsh said. “I’m disappointed, but I’m still motivated.”

Over the ensuing days, Walsh also received support from her sister, who doubled as Alex’s roommate during a wildly successful Olympic debut in which Gretchen won two golds and two silvers, as well as other U.S. teammates. The timing also worked out in Walsh’s favor, as she had only one day remaining to cheer on her U.S. teammates before departing Paris for vacation, not leaving her too much time to stew on her DQ before some clear separation from swimming.

The Next Steps

Before the end of August, Walsh was already back in Charlottesville, enrolled in a certificate program as she embarks upon her bonus fifth year of college swimming. Concerned about post-Olympic depression even before her Paris DQ, Walsh was eager to use her fifth year to keep her mind occupied on the NCAA season in the aftermath of the Games. Training has already begun, although Walsh will miss a few weeks in late September when she has surgery to repair a torn meniscus, an injury she has managed since last fall.

Pro swimming life will begin in mid-March, with Walsh committed to swimming through this year’s U.S. Nationals and hopefully the World Championships, although she currently views her career beyond that as year-to-year, understandably reluctant to immediately commit to four more years of elite-level swimming.

Whenever her career is over, Walsh will have a large collection of accolades, with her Olympic silver medal from the 200 IM in Tokyo alongside four medals at the World Championships and potentially more to come. She has already garnered eight individual NCAA titles and been a key factor in four team wins for UVA.

Her remarkable response to this crushing Olympic blow? That’s enshrined in her legacy, too.

Even in a career where she has accomplished so much, Walsh has prioritized learning how to respond to frustration and difficult situations. Walsh’s personal therapist, who doubles as a de-facto sports psychologist, has helped bolster this perspective.

“More than anything, I know that people look up to me,” Walsh said. “On the UVA swim team, I was a captain last year. I knew in a lot of instances of challenges that people are looking to me for strength, for motivation, for support. I think last year helped a lot with wanting to be like the kind of teammate that you want to be around no matter what happens. I think that has been more than anything what has helped me in this moment.”

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