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2023 NCAA Division I Men’s Swimming & Diving Championships
All swimmers know that feeling. It’s before dawn. All your (non-swimming) friends are still sleeping. You’re wearing a bathing suit, mumbling in semi-consistency while fiddling with your goggles, staring (perhaps) into the cold water, and dreading jumping in and grinding another exercise.
You ask yourself “why?” Sure, swimmers and swim coaches can utter clichés about “trusting the process” and teammates being best friends.
In post-race interviews, most swimmers stick to the safe party line answer.But at Virginia Tech Youssef Ramadan, he’s getting a little more real last night, just after scoring the 100 fly in the second-fastest performance in history. Interviewer Elizabeth Weisel chose to speak to him rather than ask additional questions. The result is this best-sounding bite of him ever.
Youssef Ramadan giving an absolutely iconic post-race interview. This is basically swimming in a nutshell. It’s a grind. it’s work. The will to be great. #ncaasd pic.twitter.com/6TRkZeK9G3
— Braden Keith (@Braden_Keith) March 25, 2023
Below is a transcript of the above interview, courtesy of commenter Supafly23.
3 years later, finally 3 years. Like them, they were always faster than me. I came from scratch, you know, every year I had a chance to win, but something happened.
And finally, it’s my turn. Many people trusted me. So many people put their trust in me. Like, I put a lot into this.
I go to bed early like a bot every day. get up 5am swim, cold pool. I hated. I hated. But I knew it all… I said I was going to be an NCAA champion one day. Today is the day. I am an NCAA Champion!
Hailing from Egypt, Ramadan has hit the scene in 2021 with a jaw-dropping ACC Championship. He set the fastest time in the United States heading into his NCAA, but in the qualifiers he became a DQ. Last year he successfully qualified, but in the final he came in third, less than 0.2 seconds behind Stanford’s Andrei Minakov.
After a series of cold, dark mornings and countless laps, Ramadan has gone on to claim himself to be an NCAA champion and invite swimmers around the world to do what others think is at least a little crazy. It reminds me of one reason.
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