Following Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte, Rowdy Gaines criticizes USA Swimming leadership amid disappointing Worlds performance

Swimming commentator Rowdy Gaines has shared his take on USA Swimming's leadership and its decision to choose Thailand for training before the World Aquatics Championships 2025. The entire Team USA practiced for more than 10 days before travelling to Singapore for the competition.

However, this stay and training window was filled with difficulties as several members within the team suffered from illness. Gretchen Walsh was one of the most prominent names who spoke about how this illness affected her performance at the Championships in Singapore after winning the 100m butterfly gold medal.

Speaking about this, Gaines shared that in his opinion, Thailand wasn't the best location for a pre-tournament training camp. Additionally, the former swimmer also remarked that most of the swimmers haven't experienced this sort of anomaly. He said (via Associated Press):

"You can blame it on the illness, you can blame it on the inexperience, most of these kids have never been in this situation, and you can blame it on logistics. Thailand doesn’t make sense to me in the first place."

During his conversation, Rowdy Gaines also remarked on the need for changes in US Swimming and called for strong leadership, as the organization's CEO position has been vacant for nearly a year.

"I do think changes need to be made, there needs to be a complete reset. But I don’t think the sky is falling. But there needs to be some great leadership. Whoever they hire as CEO needs to be the leader that is sorely needed."

This comes just a day after Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte also voiced their concerns about Team USA's disappointing campaign at the Worlds. Gaines, in his active years, was a formidable swimmer himself. The Florida native won three Olympic gold medals and five gold medals at the World Aquatics Championships.

Rowdy Gaines heaped praise on US Swimmer Gretchen Walsh's performance for her collegiate side

Rowdy Gaines (Image via: Getty)

Rowdy Gaines commented on Gretchen Walsh's impressive performance at the 2025 NCAA Championships for the University of Virginia. Walsh concluded the event with seven titles and had also won the same number of titles the previous year.

Amazed by Walsh's performance, Gaines remarked that these two seasons have been two of the best collegiate seasons for a swimmer, in his opinion. Additionally, Gaines also heaped praise on Walsh's performance in the 2025 event and said (via UVA Today):

"In my opinion, she’s had the greatest two years in history. You could argue about some others, but just based on the domination in the types of events she swam, I’ve never seen anything like it."

Notably, Gretchen Walsh also performed impressively at the ongoing 2025 World Aquatics Championships in Singapore, where she clinched two gold medals in the 100m and 50m butterfly events.

Edited by Tushar Bahl