I was a little troublemaker. Always trying to get in trouble, always mischief, like throwing rocks at cars when I was younger, all that kind of stuff.
I love working out. I mean, I’ve been doing it for about 20 years every day of my entire life. So I enjoy working out.
The big picture is the Trials and Olympics. I just have to keep focused for that, keep moving forward.
I believe everyone has a soul mate that they can spend the rest of their life together.
I’m not jealous of anybody, because I’m going to live my life the way I want to live it. I’m not going to be like, ‘Oh my God they have this, I want that.’
I try not to read the negative comments, and when I do, I let it roll off my back. I remind myself that there will always be haters as long as you are in the public eye.
If I break my ankle right now, this Olympics wasn’t meant to be.
It’s not like I’m looking for a blonde or a brunette, light-skinned or dark-skinned. I feel like I give any girl a fighting chance.
When I was growing up, I was eating fast food every day. I’d drink soda non-stop, candy, just everything. It was horrible. My go-to was McDonald’s, for sure.
No matter what, like, I couldn’t – I could break a world record, get an Olympic gold medal, and my mom would be, like, you could have done better. But you looked pretty. That’s what she says all the time.
I can’t eat beans – all beans. I think because I’m half Cuban. So growing up, we were always eating black beans and rice, and I think I just said, ‘Enough with it,’ and I can’t even stand to taste it anymore.
I might wear my pink Speedo. I think I should.
With swimming, I burn a lot of calories. I’m able to eat pretty much anything and it won’t affect me. But I don’t.
When I was a kid, I looked up to an Olympian superstar. I won’t mention his name but when I asked for his autograph he said, ‘no.’
There’s so much more to me than swimming. I like to go and have fun, like to go dancing, hang out with my friends.
The swimming community is really small, but why can’t it be as big as the NBA or the NFL?
The fact that people actually want my autograph is crazy.
Something will pop up in my head. It could be like the weirdest thing. Like all’a sudden like I have like a jumping banana in my head.
My suit blew up into a parachute. All this water rushed in, there’s air, water in there. I was freaking out.
Just all that hard work, all those hours in the pool, I feel like it’s about to pay off. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see this summer.
After my swims this weekend I think coach realized, you know what, you have to have a good one getting out of this meet. So I put the suit on and had a decent swim.