I'm the same kind of guy before all this happened.

I think the biggest things I am looking forward to is getting new faces into the sport. Getting kids who could be afraid of water to feel comfortable in the pool.

With social media, so many people have anxiety and depression because of it. Of course technology is somewhat good, but it can present so many issues; more and more we're seeing what that's causing, and it's even leading to deaths. I just got finished doing a documentary called Anx with children talking about anxiety and recognizing their emotions and understanding them better. We need to let kids know it's OK to not be OK. And we need to help them be comfortable talking about it.

Eat, sleep and swim, that's all I can do.

I've been around water my whole life, so I basically really learned at a young age the importance of it but also one day, at one point, clean water will be hard to find. There's so many people throughout the world that don't have access to clean water. Obviously we're extremely fortunate to have the opportunities that we have and to have all the water that we have. Like I said, and I can't say it enough, we all should work together to try and conserve as much as we possible can.

I knew I was not a failure in any way, and so did those close to me. It doesn't matter if you fall short; it is never a failure to go after your goals with everything you've got.

This is the first medal I've ever won in an international meet. For it to be gold is incredible. It feels great. I can't explain it.