The last time Erica Sullivan swam on the world stage, she won an Olympic silver medal in the inaugural women’s 1,500-meter freestyle at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. Her teammate, Katie Ledecky, won the historic race and could have easily overshadowed Sullivan’s first Olympic medal win.
Except Sullivan is not easily overshadowed. The 23-year-old is outspoken, funny and knows where she’s going — both with swimming and with her career after swimming.
“It was a race that happened for the first time for women, and getting to be in Japan was so important to me because I’m half Japanese, so it was great,” Sullivan said by phone from the University of Texas, where she’s a junior. “I only have great memories. It’s definitely a core memory that will stay with me for the rest of my life.”
Sullivan is competing in the Pan American Games Santiago 2023 this month and hopes to compete again for Team USA at the Olympic Games Paris 2024. But she has other goals, as well. And one day, standing on an Academy Awards stage could become a great memory, with a gold Oscar statuette to go with her Olympic medal(s).
A former open water swimmer, Sullivan burst onto the Olympic stage three years ago when she qualified for the inaugural women’s 1,500 freestyle, along with Ledecky. At the time, Sullivan talked about the mental health barriers that she had overcome to reach the Olympic stage. Her father, who inspired her swim career, had passed away in 2017 from esophageal cancer, and she talked about “hitting rock bottom” with anxiety, depression, panic attacks and post-traumatic stress disorder, all caused by losing a parent as a teenager. She expressed thanks to her sports psychologist and therapist.
Sullivan readily expresses a full-range of emotions, and her solemnity at the time overshadowed the fact that she is also very funny. Her Twitter bio reads, “I’m good at not drowning … sometimes,” followed by, “Yes, I’m the gay one.”
In Tokyo, after she…
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