Team USA’s Gretchen Walsh Basks in Much-Needed Vacation Following Olympic Swimming Victory

After a successful summer games, the UVA swimmer traveled to Portugal with her two gold and two silver medals in tow.

Gretchen Walsh / Rob Schumacher-USA TODAY Sports

Yesterday, American swimmer Gretchen Walsh left Paris with a little more luggage than she arrived with. The 21-year-old traveled to France as a first-time Olympian and left it a four-time Olympic medalist.

Walsh competed in a total of six events—three individual and three relays—during her first summer games. The athlete made it to the final of each event, and took the podium in four of the six. Her final medal haul took the form of two golds and two silvers—an impressive feat for an Olympic debut.

Not only did Walsh win four medals, but she closed out her debut Olympics in style. In the last of the swimming events at the Paris games, the women’s 4x100 medley relay, she and her teammates secured another gold medal for the United States. When asked about the achievement, she was confident in her response. “We are historically very strong in this relay, and we weren’t about to change things now,” she said. “We did exactly what we came here to do, and we had so much fun the whole way.”

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Now, with her medals in tow, she’s enjoying a little time off before she heads back to the University of Virginia (UVA) for her senior season on the swimming and diving team. Yesterday, she set out for Albufeira, a coastal town on the Southern tip of Portugal. Alongside her UVA teammate Sophia Wilson, Walsh is soaking up the sun on her beach vacation before jumping back into her athletic endeavors.