In late winter and early spring, UNC senior and swimmer Stephanie Peacock was forced to sit out of a large portion of her season due to an illness — one that coach Rich DeSelm said was never fully identified or diagnosed.
But after months of training herself back to full strength, Peacock traveled to Russia this month with the US National team and won gold and silver medals at the World University Games.
Peacock, who returned to the states this week, earned the top spot in the women’s 1500-meter freestyle and placed second in the 800-meter.
“I wasn’t expecting to come home with that,” Peacock said.
“It just really, really makes me happy to know that all this training I’ve done in the past couple months really paid off.”
Fellow freestyle swimmer Danielle Siverling said Peacock was patient with her return and that her intensity in training played a key role in her return.
“It was really cool to watch her come back,” Siverling said.
“She never complained, but you could tell she didn’t want to be a spectator because that’s not what she’s supposed to be, obviously.”
But for Peacock, keeping her composure and letting her body recovery was only half the battle.