INTERVIEW: Hosszu eyes history after fulfilling Olympic dream

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  • From Iron to Gold: Katinka Hosszu.

    What do you do when you’ve accomplished every goal you’ve ever set for yourself? It’s a question most Olympians struggle with following a successful Games but not necessarily Katinka Hosszu.

    The Hungarian entered the Rio Olympics as probably the best swimmer to have never won a medal at the Games and she left Brazil with three golds, one silver, and a new world record.

    At 27, Hosszu has finally ticked every box you’d expect to be on a swimmer’s bucket list. But the pool’s ‘Iron Lady’ – as she is nicknamed for her incredible endurance and versatility – is far from done.

    With a combined 22 World Championship medals won in the long and short course pools (11 of which are gold) and seven world records set over both distances to go with her Rio Olympics coup, Hosszu now has history on her mind.

    Krisztina Egerszegi is Hungary’s most successful Olympic swimmer and her five gold medals are the most ever won by a woman in individual events at the Games.

    “Yes, you have achieved pretty much everything that is achievable in the sport, you have the world records, the titles, everything, that’s when it becomes ‘okay, so how many?’ That’s when it comes to the numbers,” Hosszu told Sport360 on the sidelines of the FINA/airweave World Cup stop in Dubai, where she scooped 13 medals in two days.

    “We have five-time Olympic champion Krisztina Egerszegi and I have three golds, so obviously there is a goal for Tokyo (2020). That would be something amazing. It’s amazing just to chase it. Obviously if it doesn’t happen, it’s already awesome, so I have definitely thought about that.”

    It was weird that Hosszu had never won an Olympic medal prior to Rio, but it is something she learned to accept, so much that it is now weird for her to realise that she is a three-time Olympic champion.

    While her achievements are yet to fully sink in, Hosszu wanted to make sure she did not slip into a post-Olympics lull, which is partly why she doing the short course World Cup series at the moment. Hosszu and her husband/coach Shane Tusup discussed the future after Rio and the Hungarian is happy she is back racing in the pool so soon after the Games.

    “Shane and I have been talking a lot about it because obviously there was a lot of pressure and a lot of hype and excitement. Going home from Rio you kind of hit that low and it doesn’t matter as much anymore you think,” explained Hosszu.

    “You definitely have to find new perspective and new goals. For us we always plan the World Cups, we always plan next year’s World Champs. So this is something that got me back into it and definitely the World Cup once again kind of saved me.

    “Because if I would have to be at home training, I might not be as motivated but we are here, we are racing, you want to compete at the highest level, I still have the fire in me to compete, even though it’s not the Olympics, that competitive edge is still in me, I do enjoy that a lot and that’s something that brings me back.

    “I think it’s really lucky for me personally and for the Hungarian swimmers that next year the World Championships is in Budapest. It will be crazy and I think it’s perfect timing because you don’t really hit a low because you have to perform next year.

    “So we really want to prepare well for Budapest, it will be amazing. The people are already talking about camping out the whole week and they want to be there and that’s something that really motivates me.

    “I really want to be in Tokyo (2020 Olympics) but I think someone who says that ‘oh I have that goal’ and that’s all I can think about… four years is a long time so you have to break it down.”

    Hosszu’s eyes still light up at the mention of her heroics in Brazil and the fact that she did it at 27 probably makes the experience all the more sweeter.

    “I honestly don’t think it has completely hit me yet,” she confessed.

    “I still something wake up and I’m like ‘oh my God, I am an Olympic champion’. It still sounds weird to my ears when they say my name and they say ‘Olympic champion’.

    “For me it’s been a really long road, it’s not that I decided at 10 that I wanted to be and that at 15 I got it, or at 18 I got it, it’s been a really long time.

    “I actually became okay with the fact that I’m not, so I think this is why it’s taking me a longer time to process what happened and I actually achieved this goal.

    “I don’t know. Maybe it will never be obvious to me that I’m an Olympic champion.”

    She may not yet realise the magnitude of what she has accomplished, but the people back in Hungary certainly have.

    “For me, many people ask me now ‘what has changed?’ For me personally I feel that nothing really has changed, my life is the same, I’m here at the World Cup, I’m racing, I’m training, I’m doing the same things. But in Hungary for people it was very important I think,” she said.

    “I can’t even go out on the street anymore. It’s been crazy. I’ve been swimming for a long time so people have known me before but now it’s just crazy, I go to the grocery store, I can’t even walk around. For them it was really special and I think that’s something when we got back to Hungary after Rio I think that’s when it hit me how much it meant for the people.”

    Outside the pool, was there a special moment for Hosszu in Rio?

    “I’m a huge basketball fan and I was able to meet the whole USA basketball team and it was amazing. It happened the day before the 400IM and I was able to take a picture with Kyrie Irving and congratulate on the championship. That was pretty special for me. I’m definitely a big Cavaliers fan and a big LeBron fan. Unfortunately LeBron wasn’t in Rio, obviously that would have been a whole other level of crazy, but it was definitely fun.”

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