Chris Guiliano’s recent journey has been a whirlwind, shifting from Olympic hopeful to gold medalist, to losing his college team and transferring schools — all within a few short months. He opened up about the events that have defined his path.
The Olympic Trials
For Guiliano, qualifying for the Olympic team wasn’t a matter of “if”, but “how”.
“Heading into the trials, I was super confident I was going to make the team, especially in 100, that was my bread and butter,” Guiliano said.
While favored in the 100 and 50 freestyle, Guiliano shocked the field in the 200 freestyle. Entering 29th with a best time of 1:48.75, he crushed expectations with a 1:45.38 from lane 1 to finish second and punch his ticket to Paris.
“To go out there into the 200 and get second out of lane 1, it was a huge relief,” Guiliano said. “Making the team, getting that out of the way. The 200 was an event I wasn’t too experienced in, but I just kept telling myself go out there, do something special, ‘cause why not? Out of lane 1, no one even expected me to be in the final, so I felt I had nothing to lose.”
He carried this momentum into his signature 100 freestyle, touching first (47.38), beating out top performers like gold medalist Caeleb Dressel.
“Seeing all my teammates and a ton of alumni come out sitting in a box for that 100 free final, and to pull out the victory in that one was incredible,” Guiliano said.
Guiliano added a second place finish in the 50 freestyle (21.69) to become the first American male since Matt Biondi in 1988 to qualify for the Olympics in the 50, 100 and 200 freestyle.
“In the 50, it was like ‘why not?’ Competing in the 50, 100, 200, that hasn’t been done since 1988. I’d heard that circulating before the 50 free, so I just kept telling myself, nobody’s going to beat me here tonight. It was nice to get another individual out of that.”
The investigation
Riding high from the trials and ready to celebrate his 21st birthday, Guiliano traded cake and candles for news that the Irish men’s team was under investigation.
“We first learned that we were being investigated two days after the Olympic Trials. We learned that on June 25, which, you know, what a great birthday present for me,” Guiliano said sarcastically.
The team was not made known as to why it was being investigated, leaving the swimmers speculating over the reasons and potential outcomes.
“We didn’t learn any details about what it was about, so we were just kind of lost,” he said. “We didn’t really know what was going on. That had us speculating like what could have been.”
Guiliano, already facing the pressure of preparing for his inaugural Olympic games, felt the stress and uncertainty of the investigation creep in.
“It weighed me down, I’ll be honest, right after Trials as I’m trying to gear up for the Olympics,” he said. “I had that living in my head up until we found out in August what it was about. I tried to play it off the best I could but at the end of the day, it was always in the back of my mind.”
The 2024 Paris Olympic Games
Despite his college team’s precarious status, Guiliano represented Team USA in Paris, bringing home gold in the men’s 4x100 free relay and silver in the men’s 4×200 free relay (prelims). However, his individual performances fell short of his expectations, where he placed 8th in the 100 freestyle, 17th in the 50 freestyle and 19th in the 200 freestyle.
“I haven’t really had time to unpack my whole Olympic experience, Guiliano said. “In this sport it’s very easy for us to focus on the negatives, and I didn’t really feel my best out there. I didn’t really make the finals in two of my individuals. To me, I feel a little disappointed in my individual performances.”
Still, the 400 free relay stood out as a highlight as the first gold for Team USA.
“Jack [Alexy] has been an awesome young gun there. Hunter [Armstrong]’s been on the scene for a little bit,” Guiliano said. “And, you know, I’ve always looked up to Caeleb [Dressel] and to be able to walk out on the deck with those three guys, it just meant the world to me. As soon as that team was assembled, I was like, we are winning this thing no matter what.”
The aftermath
After a surreal Olympic experience, Guiliano was slammed with the outcome of the investigation.
“It was just devastating to hear. We were all very lost. It was just a very quick zoom meeting.”
Representatives from both Ropes and Gray LLP and the University of Notre Dame attended the meeting, which was said to be brief, leaving more questions than answers. Media was notified of the team’s suspension on August 15, 2024, but much remained quiet from campus. Swimmers spoke little to no public word on the topic, and swimmers like Guiliano face mixed emotions.
“While I respect the decision of the athletic department and how they think this was the best move, I also disagree with the move — feeling like it was a bit extreme,” Guiliano wrote in a text to The Observer. “Ultimately, it’s left many talented athletes out to dry with limited action to help them and find a time and place to make sure they’d be able to perform at a top level next year. It’s killed the passion and drive that many had, forcing them to pick up other activities.”
Guiliano was reinstated with training restrictions, initially limited to a small group of male swimmers before joining broader practices with the women’s team and freshmen men. This created barriers in the training schedule, making the adjustment difficult.
“I got reinstated pretty quickly, because I did not bet on swimming,” Guiliano said. “We still had to wait out a couple weeks. There were seven or eight of us who got reinstated. We had to work out all the kinks before we could reintegrate.”
Guiliano immediately missed the presence of his usual teammates, many of whom he considered best friends and key for his love of the team.
“It’s been really hard not seeing guys that I’ve been used to seeing on a daily basis,” Guiliano said. “They’re all my best friends and there's been weeks where I've gone several days without seeing them, and I’m used to seeing them 20 hours a week.”
The transfer
Guiliano’s uncertainty and loneliness ultimately led him to enter the transfer portal, a difficult decision he announced earlier in the semester.
“There was a long time here, in that gray area, where I wasn’t happy,” Guiliano said. “Where I was missing all the friends here. I just felt it was a decision for me mentally as well, just because I didn’t have everybody here.”
Recruiting proved more difficult for him the second time around.
“Talking to other schools and just entering the portal was really tough on me,” Guiliano said. “I’ve never really been that vulnerable emotionally, and it really put me through how much I love this place.”
Leaving Notre Dame also meant grappling with his legacy, and what it could have continued to be.
“Having a legacy here at ND has always meant so much to me,” Guiliano said. “It’s crushing to see with everything we worked toward this past year. It was our highest finish in program history — 10th — and then with everything that happened over the summer ... All my love goes out to the staff and the team.”
After time in the portal, the 2024 five-time NCAA All-American announced his official transfer to the University of Texas at Austin on Nov. 6.
“It was tough to leave this university before I ever intended to,” Guiliano said. “I feel like I made a four year commitment here and now, you know … Just kinda going through those calls, it’s not something I ever really wanted. I never wanted to go through that process again.”
Despite the difficulty of leaving the Irish, Guiliano mentioned the optimism centered around his debut at Texas.
“With where I’m at in my career, I like the group they have down in Austin, working with Bob Bowman,” Guiliano said. “I’ve always kinda wanted to have a little stint in Texas. I just like the idea of it, I’ve only heard great things about the city of Austin, so.”
Texas men’s swim and dive has been led by the legendary Bowman since April 2024. Bowman was the former Arizona State head coach (2024 NCAA Champions) who has mentored several swimming greats, most notably Michael Phelps.
Guiliano will join Bowman and the Longhorns for their spring season, adding freestyle sprinting depth to a program with 45 consecutive conference championships and 15 NCAA titles, its most recent in 2021.
“I’m gonna burn the last year of eligibility in the spring,” Guiliano said. “I hope all goes well for 2028 down there, that’s kind of the plan right now. We’ll see how things end up but I’m super excited to get to work down there and I think it’ll be the best thing for me.”
Guiliano still intends to graduate from Notre Dame, something he regards with great importance.
“The classes I take down in Texas, those credits will be able to transfer back,” Guiliano said. “I think I have to submit a couple e-forms and I should be good to go. All I need is one upper-level econ course. That and maybe two electives.”
When asked what he would want to say about his time at Notre Dame, it was hard for him to know where to start.
“I feel like I have a lot of things to say,” Giuliano said with a long pause. “I just love this place so much. It’s going to be tough to leave even in the dead of winter, going down there where it’s 70s and sunny in the winter.”
He praised the resiliency and composure of Notre Dame’s staff and team.
“I can’t stress this enough — I’m really impressed with the way the staff has handled all of this, how the women have handled this, not having us around, how the freshmen guys have handled this. And the fifth-year transfers sticking it out. I love all those guys,” he said.
But, Guiliano knows rebuilding the program won’t be easy.
“Trying to bring this program out of the weeds is going to be a tough task at hand, but I fully believe in the staff to get the job done, especially with the incoming talent we have,” he said.
Before fully settling in at Texas, Guiliano will compete for Team USA in the 50 and 100 freestyle at the 2024 Short Course World Championships in Budapest, Hungary. Afterwards, he’ll return to South Bend for his “Economics of Climate Change” final, on the quest for his Notre Dame degree.
Then, it will be down to Austin where Guiliano will trade “Go Irish” for "Hook ‘Em” and join the Longhorn men as they vie for an NCAA Championship in 2025.
