Unfiltered Waters

Olympic silver medalist, world champion and short course world record holder Luke Hobson is back on Unfiltered Waters, this time in person with Katie Hoff Anderson at the University of Texas, to talk about Pan Pacs, chasing the 1:42.0 and life as a pro in Bob Bowman's group.

Luke won the 200 free at Pan Pacs in front of a home crowd and went 1-2 with Gabriel Jett, and he still left a little disappointed. He explains why. It was his first year as a pro, with no NCAA season and no trials meet, just nine months of training from the end of the World Cup circuit to August. He was close to his best time, but he believed he had a 1:43 low in him, and he talks about what it is like to get one shot at it after all that work.

Then the big one: the 200 free world record, 1:42.00, and how close he has already been. Through the 150 he has been about 0.8 under record pace, and he breaks down what he and Bob are working on to hold it home, from 26.0 pace when he is tired to lengthening his stroke on the third and fourth 50s.

Luke also takes Katie inside the Texas pro group: the new "prison yard" dryland circuit that has him leaner than ever, the hardest day of the week (Monday color sets), getting beaten by Hubi and Leon on back dolphin kick, and the yell tally on Bob's board. He explains why he is not a data guy and gave up his Whoop, why "Logical Luke" fits, and what he is looking forward to at Short Course Worlds in Beijing's Water Cube.

It ends with a rapid fire "most likely to" round about his training partners and his non-swimming goal: a 10 pound largemouth bass.

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Three-time Olympic champion and 12-time world champion Summer McIntosh sits down with Katie Hoff Anderson in person for the first time, in the Hall of Fame at the University of Texas, to explain what went wrong at Pan Pacs, what she changed afterwards, and what life looks like now that Austin is home.

Summer walks through her 2026 season from the inside. She got sick at Canadian Trials, and Bob Bowman was the one who pulled her out of the meet, days after she broke the 200 fly world record in Montreal. That illness cost her the first week of ramping back up, and on top of it she was, in her words, fully over tapered for Pan Pacs. She explains why the meet felt like she could not shift gears, why she stayed up until 3am in her hotel room on the last night writing down everything she wanted to fix, and how she wiped it from her mind before her two weeks off in Toronto.

The deeper thread is how she processes a bad meet without dragging it into the next season. She talks about being "either like zero or 100" when it comes to swimming, the small daily habits she is tightening up, from protein after every practice to eight to ten hours of sleep, and the bigger fixes on her turns, her dives and how to train for five events. Her biggest lesson from the summer: "I'd way rather be a little bit under tapered than over tapered."

She also gets candid about training under Bob Bowman a year in. He does not hand out many good jobs, he is tapped into every practice, and in her words, "he does not miss a meter." She tells the story of the 200 fly world record she did not think she had in her, turning for the last 50, hearing the crowd and realizing she must be close to record pace.

There is plenty of fun in here too: presenting the pole position award to George Russell at the Canadian Grand Prix while dressed head to toe in Red Bull, a 6'10" boyfriend Bob calls "big boy", Katie's theory that the best women swimmers in the world all love to clean, and why Summer tidies her boyfriend's room within five minutes of every visit.

She closes with her goal for 2027 outside the pool, learning from her older sister about growing into her own, and why she is skipping Short Course Worlds to train through toward US Open. This one is for anyone who wants to hear how one of the best swimmers in the world handles a meet that did not go her way.

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Subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast platform, and follow us on social media (linktr.ee/unfilteredwaters) for clips, bonus content, and updates throughout the week.

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Lani Pallister, the Australian distance swimmer who beat Katie Ledecky in the 800 free at Pan Pacs this summer, joins Katie Hoff Anderson and Elizabeth Beisel to explain what changed when she moved to Dean Boxall's squad at St Peters, why she still expects herself to swim fast, and what it is really like racing the kindest person in the sport.

Lani walks through the last 18 months, from a mid-season move in the spring of 2025 to a World Championships final in Singapore that everyone had framed as Katie versus Summer, where she ended up second in 8:05. She tells a lunch crowd that she dropped ten seconds in ten weeks, and Cate Campbell answers from the stage with her own number. She talks about Commonwealth Games and Pan Pacs back to back, the 200 free and 1500 double, and the hug from Katie Ledecky after the 800.

The deeper thread is how much of it is mental. Lani says the change with Dean is "more mental than it is physical", explains why she will not shave her legs or have caffeine until after the morning heat, and describes the Monday threshold sets that end with her throwing up, which is why Australian officials now hand her a bag at the end of the pool. In her words, "I dropped 10 seconds in the space of like 10 weeks with Dean."

She also gets into Lane Four, the swimming app she built with Kaylee McKeown, Mollie O'Callaghan, Jamie Perkins, Hannah Fredericks and Taylor McKeown, what six founders in a group chat has taught her about communicating, and why surf lifesaving still feels like a place she should be unbeatable, even if she races it less now to protect her ankles.

There is plenty of fun in here too: she makes Dean's coffee every second day, her new apartment is mostly pink and has no sofa yet, she carries film cameras around the pool deck, and she lost a chip game in San Diego that sent her onto the lane rope after a race at Pan Pacs.

She closes with the rapid fire: her treat meal, her favourite race ever, the last time she cried to Dean that she was bad at swimming, and how she handles people who do her wrong. In her words, "I'll forgive but I won't forget." It is a relaxed, funny conversation for anyone who follows distance swimming or wants to know who Lani is away from the blocks.

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Luka Mijatovic is a newly minted Longhorn, American record holder in the 1000 free, seven-time gold medalist at this year's Junior Pan Pacs and the youngest male to win a national title other than Michael Phelps. The Northern California swimmer joins Katie Hoff Anderson to explain why he committed early to Texas to train under Bob Bowman, why he felt ready to leave his club team now, and how he is setting himself up to make the Olympic team in LA.

Luka walks through the summer that got him here. He had almost no time between Nationals and Junior Pan Pacs, stayed in Irvine to train with a small squad, and went through a double taper for the first time, arriving at Junior Pan Pacs with a blank mindset and one goal: do as best he can for his country. He describes what it feels like to walk out to the USA chants with that black cap on, the team room in the Vancouver dorms with the PB and J station and the card games, and the American record in the 1000 free, where he stopped stressing over the times after a rough couple of days and just swam for fun.

The deeper thread is how hard he is on himself and how he keeps it in check. One bad rep can send him into a spiral, to the point that his coach has to tell him to chill out, and he explains how he turns a bad day into work on the little fundamentals. He shares the set he is proud of, twenty 200's long course, completely alone in a half lane while the high schoolers tapered, with Katie asking if he was in the buffer lane. He also explains why he skipped high school season, how he stays in his own lane when the comparisons start ("comparison is the thief of joy"), why his coaches keep pushing him even on good days, and how he tries to lap the swimmer three lanes over when nobody in the group can go with him.

Then it is all Texas. Luka explains the unofficial visit to see his friends and go to the Texas-Ohio State game, where Texas was down at halftime, some of his group were about to leave, and everything changed once Texas scored that second touchdown and the crowd went electric. After that trip, he told his friends that if he could recommit, he would recommit. He also gets into whose training style he is closest to on the Texas roster, why Bob's program is not a drastic change from his club team, why his one worry is underwaters, and why he thinks college swimming is bigger than yourself.

There is plenty of fun in here too: the Snapchat streak that has Katie doing the math, the 90 up-and-outs his group owes if they are late to the start of practice, the driver's license he is about to get in December right before Austin, how long he would wait at a green light before honking (seven seconds, versus three seconds max for his mom), house music, why he dropped the headphones after Nationals, a pickleball game he ranks at top 24 nationals, and walking his dog at 100 percent instead of 20.

He closes with the swim that brought him the most joy, breaking eight minutes in the 800 free at 2023 Summer Juniors with his team on the sideline, his brother's birth as the happiest moment outside the sport ("he's like my ride or die"), and the word that motivates him: dedication. In his words, "I want to be dedicated to whatever I do." For swimmers, swim parents, coaches and anyone curious how the next Texas Longhorn thinks about training, this is Luka Mijatovic in his own words.

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Cam McEvoy holds the 50 freestyle world record at 20.88 and is the reigning Olympic and world champion in the event. In a normal 50 training block, he swims about 1.5K a week. Fresh off Commonwealth Games gold in Glasgow, the Australian sprinter joins Katie Hoff Anderson to explain the gym-first, low-volume approach he built after Tokyo, why it runs against so much of how swimming has always trained, and why he believes the sport has not even seen its ceiling for strength yet.

Cam walks through the day it started. In October 2022, after more than a year out of the water, his first session back was six parachute sprints of 12 strokes, and it knocked him out for a two-hour nap even though he has never been a napper. Within eight weeks he beat his Tokyo Olympic time in the 50 free, and within nine months he was world champion. He shares the one time his confidence wavered, when he overdid it in May 2023 and his coach Tim Lane told him to stay out of the pool until the meet, and how the 20.88 in China felt like he was ripping air for the first 25 to 30 meters. He also gets into his short course detour into the 100 freestyle, which is about the relay and the fun of something new, and why protecting his 50 free title makes him wary of adding the 4x100 at LA 2028.

The deeper thread is trust. Cam explains why the gains from strength and power work happen outside of conscious experience, why that scares athletes raised on threshold sets they can feel, and why he thinks that fear is holding the sport back. He traces the whole idea to a bouldering gym after Tokyo, where climbers who looked like sticks were repping out front lever holds hanging from one finger on each side, and he lays out how he would approach age group training without pushing kids into either sprinting or high volume too early. He also talks about becoming a dad to his son Hartley, and how being home on the floor playing with him 20 minutes after training has changed how he sees the sport. In his words, "I'm swimming in a hole in the ground full of water."

There is plenty of fun in here too: the hot tub five meters from the pool where his group sits for 15 to 20 minutes between 25s, smelling salts before a rep, why suiting up to rip a 25 feels like being 18 and discovering the bench press with your mates, his pitch for a 25 meter competition with a live band, ideally metal, and a pre-Olympic 25 race in LA that Katie wants hosted by Unfiltered Waters. Katie, who has a five-week-old at home and is chasing an Olympic Trials cut in the 100 breaststroke, also gets some very direct pull-up advice: "Spam them into oblivion, basically."

He closes with the swim that brought him the most joy, a heat in Fukuoka in 2023 that felt like floating down the pool, the messages he gets every week from people who quit swimming 20 years ago and came back to it because of what he has shared, and the one word that motivates him: potential. For coaches, swim parents and anyone curious how the fastest 50 freestyler in history thinks about training, this is the method explained by the person who built it.

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Subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast platform, and follow us on social media (linktr.ee/unfilteredwaters) for clips, bonus content, and updates throughout the week.

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FOLLOW KATIE ON:
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