U.S. Olympic trials next on swimmer Missy Franklin's comeback trail
Won 5 medals at 2012 Games before suffering back problems
She burst on the scene at the 2012 Summer Games, becoming one of the greatest young Olympian by winning five swim medals, including four gold, at age 17.
Melissa "Missy" Franklin followed it up with a dominating performance at the 2013 world championships in Barcelona, where she won six gold.
The next year, she struggled at the Pan Pacific Championships and competed through debilitating back spasms before reaching the podium twice in four events at the 2015 worlds in Kazan, Russia.
Franklin – who took this year off from her studies at the University of California, Berkeley – remains one of the more accomplished swimmers in world history entering the U.S. Olympic trials, which started Sunday in Omaha, Nebraska. Franklin competes Monday.
She's expected to swim her signature events: the 100- and 200-metre backstroke and freestyle and may compete in seven events in Rio, depending on how she fares at trials.
"You go to college and you have a new coach, new program, new school and so much is different," Franklin, who's between her sophomore and junior years and plans to major in psychology and minor in education, told CBC Sports. "I've definitely started to experience the ups and downs.
"Some of that was really hard to go through. An injury is hard to go through. Going through disappointments in how I was racing, that was never really something I had experienced.
"You learn how to keep fighting," added Franklin, who has dual citizenship because her parents, Dick and D.A., are Canadian. "You learn how to keep working hard. You learn how to use that disappointment and anger, if that's what it is, to motivate you."
Physical therapists have done such good work with Franklin, she said, that the back no longer is a factor during competition. Franklin also doesn't believe her disappointing performance at last year's worlds is directly related to the back injury.
"The things I learned not only apply to whether I get injured again but what happens when I face a setback at work or struggle in a relationship," she said. "There are so many different things you learn in swimming that you can apply to so many different aspects of your life that I'm so grateful for and I don't even think that I realize all of them."
Only the top two in each event make the U.S. Olympic squad, and for the past two years Franklin has been upstaged by Katie Ledecky, the world swimmer of the year the last three years.
While she misses class – Franklin took online courses this year – not having to balance school with athletics has helped her prepare for trials.
"It made a huge difference to go home after practice and take a nap and not have to go to class for two hours and sit in a chair," said Franklin, who attended Regis Jesuit High School in Aurora, Ont., near Toronto. "Going into this year, I felt it was really appropriate to dedicate 100 per cent of my time to training."