Eddie Reese and Kris Kubik have had me training great the past couple weeks, and I knew I could have some very fast swims this weekend, but did not know how fast. We have been training incredible well, but I didn’t want to taper for the meet so we decided on a three day drop taper starting Monday. I also decided to shave down the afternoon of the race. Because of some earlier travel plans, I would not be able to swim the entire meet over the weekend and had to make some changes to my schedule. I planned on swimming the 500, but wanted to take it out for a 200 time. Also swam the 200 prelims, but wanted to take that out for a 100 time. In the end, it all worked out perfectly!

Swimming in lane 8 of the 500 free was a very odd way to be going after an American Record, but I knew all I needed was a lane to swim in. I have always been able to swim a great last 100 of the 200, so I when I heard on the loud speakers that I was out in 44.89 I knew I had to do exactly what I have been training to do to break the record. Touching the wall in 1:31.3 and accomplishing that goal was huge, but I know I can be so much faster. Since I was racing for a 200 time in a 500 I had to finish the entire race, and not going to lie it was the hardest 300 I have ever done. At the 400 mark I actually thought I was going to puke. Here’s the only video we got of the race footage. Thanks to Charles at the TSC for capturing this!

A big shout-out to my coaches for preparing me for that race, my teammates for pushing me and making sure I was going to break that record Thursday night, and Sam Kendricks on the announcing. He’s become a great friend of mine and has called a number of my best races. I could hear him the whole 200 free during that race!

I guess it is a good thing I didn’t retire after London, I have so many more goals to accomplish and this is just the start. Thank you guys for all the support!

With 63 percent of the viewer vote, Berens took home the award.  The Charlotte native edged out fellow nominees Beverly Howard, Brenda Stevenson, Leon and Sandra Levine and David Marsh.

It’s not every day you get to see an Olympic gold medal in person, much less three Olympic medals, which earned the Olympic swimmer and Charlotte native the award.

“It’s a huge honor.  I looked at the list when they first told me about it and saw coach Marsh and the Levine’s on there–it’s just a cool honor to be up there with those sorts of people,” said Berens.

Berens got his feet wet as a small child and began swimming at SwimMAC Carolina at the young age of nine, training in Charlotte.  He says he’s carried the local support with him across the world.

“Just throughout my whole career Charlotte has supported me so much and it’s great because when I’m standing there behind the blocks it’s not just me, I’m not just swimming by myself, I’m representing Charlotte, representing USA,” said Berens.

It’s a role he takes seriously.  Just recently Berens visited his alma mater South Meck High School and took some time to visit with students.

“It was fun being able to talk to the kids.  I got to sign autographs, take pictures and talk to them in the auditorium for about 30 minutes and it’s cool because I was in the same position they are.”

Working as a role model doesn’t end there.  Berens volunteers as assistant coach at his college alma mater University of Texas.

“If they have questions, if they want to fix something with their stroke, I want them to come to me and hopefully I can help them out.  If they ever have any questions about the team or what it is to be an Olympian and how to get there, I want to be there for them and help them out as much as I can.”

Berens won his first gold medal in Beijing for the 4×200 relay with Michael Phelps, and then again in London, but this time he came home with a silver and gold medal.

He took a brief retirement, but it didn’t last long.

“After I got to settled down from everything, I was like, you know, I’m at top of my game, swimming really well. Michael is going to be done which opens a spot for everybody.  It’s just kind of what I do and it would be weird to leave right now at such a young age.”

So far he’s made no decisions about the 2016 Olympics in Rio, having already reached all his swimming goals, but Berens says he’s still focused on swimming, having fun and has some good advice for young kids wondering how he made his dreams come true.

“I always had a goal no matter what it was—school, swimming, life outside of swimming, I always had a purpose.  I always had a plan and I think that’s how I got to where I am today,” Berens said.

Going into this meet, I really had no idea what to expect. I had my goals, but I did not know if I had put in enough training to achieve them. After the Olympics I took a solid 7 weeks off, and when I say off, I mean I did absolutely nothing. Once I moved back to Austin, I didn’t get back into a full week of workouts until 3 weeks before nationals. I was still traveling a lot to do appearances and just trying to keep a good feel for the water. At nationals, I think I was in a great place to where I wasn’t too tired yet, had just gotten back into shape, and also had a great feel for the water.

Swimming a lifetime best in the 200 free was definitely a goal, but it has always been a goal of mine to own the American Record in the event. Going 1:31.9 and being .2 away from that record makes it tough, I know there was easily something I could have done to be .2 faster. My first 100 was about a second slower than I wanted, and I think that comes from me not racing much before the meet and did not know my race plan. Could have been a VERY fast time if it was swum a little better in my opinion. I like to take advantage of every short course meet I can because I don’t get to do it often. I feel that I am a much better short course swimmer than I am long course because of the walls. I can kick underwater more often, and use those walls to my advantage. But for the training and break I have taken after London, I can’t complain with my time.

I actually thought my 100 Free was going to be better than my 200 because of the training I had been doing. Felt great doing some sprinting in practice and had actually dove a really quick time in a 50. But, like always, I got way behind after the first 50 and could never catch up. A lifetime best again in the 100, but would have been really cool to of been in the 41 second club.

My next competition will be the Austin Grand Prix in mid January. Until then, I will be getting back into the swing of things and focusing on my goals ahead. Christmas training always makes or breaks a season, one of the most important and toughest parts of the season.

There are three things I have a huge passion for: the University of Texas, athletics, and swimming. After talking to a number of people at Texas over the past few weeks — including head coach Eddie Reese and Assistant Kris Kubik — I’ve decided to move back to Austin where I’ll be getting back in the pool to help the swim team as much as I can.

While I initially said I was done swimming after my last race at the London Olympics, that was a comment made during an emotional high. At that moment, I felt I had the chance to do what every athlete wants — to finish on top. I was standing on a medal podium with Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time, and I had just won my third Olympic medal. I thought to myself, “What more do I have to accomplish?”

When I finally got home and reflected on everything that had happened and started looking ahead, I realized that swimming was and is my life. Right now, I am at the top of my game, and I just want to continue to be involved in the sport I love.

ByBrett Berk 11:00 AM, July 31 2012

Every sport has a dream team. If this were not the case, fantasy football wouldn’t currently rank as the number one drain on our nation’s precious productivity. But while our definition of “fantasy” may differ from yours, if we were designing a squad of swimmers to represent our needs, it would surely include Charlotte, North Carolina’s gift to chlorinated water: Ricky Berens. The 24-year-old already garnered one gold medal in Beijing in 2008 for his work on the 4x200m freestyle relay, and is favored (at least by us) to win three more at his events in London. Also, he’s appeared in ads for dog food and chocolate milk, two things about which we’re equivocal, as well as BMWs, about which we’re usually not.

For these reasons, and others, we gave Ricky a call recently to discuss gestational paddling, hair removal, and how his vacation plans are a complete inversion of everyone else’s. Highlights of our conversation, below.

VF Daily: We’re all swimmers for the first nine months of our lives, but most of us don’t go on to a career in the pool. How did you get into the sport?

Ricky Berens: My mom is a swim coach. She’s been a swim coach since before I was born, for a local swimming team. We were at the pool every single day, for the longest time—since before I can remember. She taught me everything I know.

So it’s genetic. Kind of like all those graphic analyses of Michael Phelps’s body during the Beijing Olympics, discussing the outsized length of his arms and torso and such. Has anyone done any similar analyses of your body to make claims for the source of your superhuman abilities?

No. I think I’m pretty normal. I don’t have that long torso like him or anything crazy. I have big feet and long arms but nothing abnormal. At least I don’t think so.

I guess we’ll have to wait until after you win a bunch of medals to see you dissected on ESPN. Now, one of my friends insisted that I ask about depilation. I’m sure different swimmers use different tactics, but how do you get rid of all that aerodynamic-sapping hair?

Women’s shaving cream. We always just shave. Once or twice a year. No special waxes or anything. We do our own thing. We’ve always heard that the women’s extra-hydrating is best for us, because it makes our skin soft, instead of men’s shaving cream, because that’s for the face.

Does soft skin have some aerodynamic advantage?!?

No, it’s just for soft skin. The chlorine in the pools just kills your skin.

Now, I heard that my friends from BMW are helping you out somehow. How does your partnership with them work?

They’re taking sensors and putting them on our body—taking qualitative data and making quantitative data, putting numbers to things like our underwater dolphin kick. Before, we would always watch videos, and compare video to video, and say, Hey that looks good, that looks right. Now they’re using technology to put numbers to things like the angles of our kick, the angles of our knees, the power you’re getting off each kick. Adding information that we hadn’t had before.

Is it actually helping?

I’ve only messed with it once—I was in Colorado Springs to do some of the beta testing. They’re still in the beginning phases. It will probably be coming online after the Olympics. They’re still working on it. So I’m helping them tweak it for the fall.

I don’t know anything about sports or swimming. Are there other competitive events coming up in the fall for which this will be a help?

There are always a bunch of meets. There are big meets once or twice every single year. Swimming, you see it on TV once every four years, but we do it every other year too!

Do you have any plans for after the Olympics?

I’m going to take a big, big break. Since I started swimming in the middle of high school, I probably haven’t taken more than two weeks off. So I’m looking forward to taking a vacation and not swimming for a good amount of time.

That’s kind of the opposite of everyone else. When we think vacation, we think: beach, sun, swim.

Yeah. Exactly. [Laughs.] I’ll do some surfing. But when I’m on vacation, I don’t usually hit the water.

Ricky Berens, who won gold and set a world record alongside Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte, and Peter Vanderkaay in the men’s 4 x 200m freestyle relay in Beijing, will try to repeat the feat Tuesday. Here are five reasons EW readers in particular should root for him.

1. He’s endured an infamous wardrobe malfunction: At the 2009 World Championships, his suit split down the back. “You Google me, it’s a porn site that pops up,” he told EW earlier this year, laughing. “It doesn’t get much worse than that.” Well, it could have split down the front. “It could have,” he concedes. “At least the camera didn’t have a view when I flipped the turn. I’m sure the ref had an interesting view.”

2. He’s a Game of Thrones fan. “It’s a perfect guy’s show. There’s a lot of killing. There’s a lot of…” Sex? “Am I allowed to say that?” he asks, laughing again. “It keeps you on your toes. There’s a good cliffhanger every week. I actually wait until the season is done, and then I download the whole thing so I don’t have to wait a whole week in between episodes.”

3. His response when asked to name his favorite inspirational sports movies. “There aren’t any great inspirational swimming movies. We have like, Swimfan, but it’s not very inspirational,” he says. “Rocky and Miracle. Those are the two big ones. The Fighter with Christian Bale is a good movie… Is Cool Runnings considered inspirational? Do you get the chills watching that one?”

4. He’s a gamer. ”I’m a 24-year-old boy. I play a lot of Call of Duty.” Is he competitive? “Any Olympic athlete, I think we’re all way too competitive. If I’m playing it for like five minutes, and I’m just getting killed, I turn it off. And if I’m losing at a football game against my little brother, it’s a restart button.”

5. He’s read The Hunger Games. Team Peeta or Team Gale? “Is that like a Twilight question?” he asks. “I like Peeta.”

Bonus fun fact: Berens is one of the athletes teamed with BMW to help U.S. Swimming with new technology. Engineers put sensors on his joints to work on the dolphin kick. “Before, all we had were videos to compare. We didn’t know what makes us go faster. Now, they’re going to be able to calculate how fast you’re moving, how fast you kick, and how much power you get from each kick. They’re gonna tell us what movement works better for us,” he says. “It’s something that no other country has.”

LONDON — Former University of Texas swimmer Ricky Berens earned his second relay gold medal on Tuesday at the Aquatics Centre as part of the winning 4x200m freestyle relay team for the United States.

Berens earned a silver medal during these Olympics with the 4x100m freestyle relay. He and fellow Longhorn Jimmy Feigen swam two legs during the qualifying heats.

Berens also won a gold medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics with the 4x200m freestyle relay; however, this marked Berens’ first time to swim in an Olympic relay final.

“Ricky had an outstanding effort in contributing to the gold medal for our country,” said Texas Men’s Swimming and Diving assistant coach Krik Kubik. “He always seems to be able to rise to the challenge, and tonight he most certainly did. The entire relay was superb.”

The United States never trailed in the relay final. Berens swam the third leg, and he gave Michael Phelps a lead of four seconds as Phelps began the anchor leg. USA won the race with a time of 6:59.70, the only team to finish in less than seven minutes.

Christian Schurr, a former UT All-American competing for Mexico, swam his 200m breaststroke heat in 2:14.16. He finished fourth in his heat but 26th overall. The top 16 after the five qualifying heats advanced to semifinals.

USA Swimming makes this pretty easy to do, having every single resource possible here with us at camp. We have the best coaches in the world on our pool deck, national team massage therapists for recovery after all the practices, video of us swimming whenever we need it, and one of the top rated facilities in the country. We couldn’t ask for a better setup to prepare us for the games.

Right now I would say I am getting killed in workouts. I came down to a full taper for trials and now I want to build myself back up. I feel like I still have a lot of room for improvement after the trials, and I am making sure that everything will be hitting right once I get to London.

Berens, who won gold at the 2008 Beijing Olympics as part of the 4×200-meter freestyle relay, will swim both the 4×200 and 4×100 relay events and will compete in his first-ever individual Olympic race. He learned the good news from, of all sources, Twitter.

Berens finished third in the 200-meter freestyle race at the Olympic trials, high enough to once again earn a spot on the relay team, but one place out of contention to swim the individual event in London. But then on July 2, Michael Phelps‘ coach Bob Bowman announced via Twitter that Phelps was withdrawing from the 200, meaning Berens would take his place.

“WAIT WHAT!!!” Berens wrote as he retweeted Bowman’s announcement. Minutes later he posted another tweet saying, “Words can’t describe how I’m feeling right now. If Twitter is right, I am swimming the 200 free at the Olympics!!!!! This is nuts!!!” USA Swimming later officially confirmed the news.

In a May interview with USA Swimming, Berens talked about the usefulness of his finance degree in managing his career.

“As a professional swimmer, I am running in effect my own business. So I always look at what’s going on in the business world, I followed the big Facebook IPO, but in a few more years, I do plan to use that degree even more.”

Heats for the men’s 200-meter freestyle and 4×100 freestyle relay begin on July 29 and the 4×200 freestyle relay competition kicks off July 31.