Bathtub swimmer.
Gretchen Walsh sometimes uses the term her critics once used to poke at her, but it’s OK now. She’s shed the label once and for all, and perhaps even more importantly, she’s convinced herself she’s more than just a short-course swimmer.
She’s an Olympian. She’s a world record-holder. And she has a chance to be the breakout star of the Paris Games.
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The “bathtub swimmer” insult implies that a swimmer can only be good when distances are short and there are lots of walls, which means you can spend about 60 percent of the race underwater. Long-course swimming — in those 50-meter pools you see at international competitions like world
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