At this year’s Olympics in Paris, Hubert Kos of Texas men’s swim & dive claimed a gold medal in the 200-meter backstroke.
However, Kos wasn’t always this dominant. Just three years prior, the swimmer from Hungary still sought his breakthrough on the world stage.
“I had this sort of dip in motivation. I was kind of bummed out after (the 2021) Olympics because I came 20th,” he said. “I just couldn’t make it happen.”
Enter legendary coach Bob Bowman, former coach of Michael Phelps and Léon Marchand and is now head coach for Texas men’s swimming and diving.
The two met at the 2022 World Aquatics Championships in Hungary, where Kos placed sixth in the men’s 200-meter individual medley and felt it was time to go under Bowman’s tutelage at Arizona State University, where he was head coach.
“I think that he was watching me by that point and saw that I had some talent that he could work with,” he said. “We decided that I should start training with him at ASU.”
Kos always saw himself among the elite, but it wasn’t until he landed in Tempe in January 2023 that he fully realized his potential, particularly mentally.
“I learned how to time myself, what to do and when to do it, how to behave at a certain competition and how to deal with challenges that come your way,” Kos said. “There’s so many things that could go wrong, (but Bowman) always tells us to just focus on the process.”
The results were almost immediate. Within seven months, Kos became a world champion in the 200-meter backstroke, an event he only started competing in upon arriving at the ASU campus.
He credits Bowman with inspiring the switch, and from there he went on to dominate the backstroke, setting school records for the 100- and 200-meter events, as well as helping to win the 400-meter medley relay in the 2024 NCAA Championships.
With Bowman’s move to Texas this past spring, Kos tagged along, revealing his optimism for himself and his coach at Texas and is sure that Bowman will build a “swimming empire” on the Forty Acres.
“As soon as I got here, I saw that this team was cut out of a different cloth,” Kos said.
But it won’t be long before he sees his former team, as Arizona State comes to Austin for a quad meet in January. Despite the anticipation, Kos is excited to see his old friends, but knows it is strictly business.
“They want to show us and show the world that they can do well without (Bowman),” Kos said. “So I think it’ll be a very interesting meet.”
