KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Catherine Fox is still surrounded by water, but not in the way you’d expect a two-time Olympic gold medalist from Roeland Park, Kansas, to be.
Fox is temporarily living in Barbados, an island surrounded by Caribbean waters.
“The first few months, it’s been absolute paradise,” Fox admitted. “Crystal blue waters, rolling out of bed, going to the beach and surfing.”
Fox, her partner, and their two children decided to move to the island from San Fransisco in early 2021. They’re not sure how long they’ll stay.
“I really took to the water very comfortably early on,” Fox remembered her youth.
She began swimming competitively at age 9. By 18, the Bishop Miege High School graduate was in the Olympics where she won two gold medals in the 1996 Atlanta Games.
“The night after the Olympics, the night after my event, I was spinning quite a bit,” Fox said from Barbados. “I was up well into the evening just lying in bed thinking, I’m a gold medalist.”
From gold medals to NCAA records, Fox continued swimming competitively after the 1996 games as a student-athlete at Stanford University. She missed the 2000 Olympic Games after a fourth-place finish in that year’s Olympic Trials.
She’s lived in the San Fransisco area ever since, where she developed a passion for healing arts like yoga, massage therapy and more.
“Because I had to really heal myself. I was in my 20s and experiencing chronic back pain,” Fox explained.
Once recovered from the physical and emotional toll of competitive swimming, Fox earned a living performing circus arts like aerial rope contortion throughout her 20s.
“I’m one who really likes to explore the realms of human capacity and I like to enjoy really being physical and artistic. Rope contortion kind of fit right in that niche,” Fox admitted.
It wasn’t until she was pregnant with her first child that she discovered acupuncture and traditional Chinese medicine. Fox admitted to being uncharacteristically irritable one day searching for a foot massage when she decided to try acupuncture.
“It was amazing how much I walked out of there feeling come completely calm and relaxed,” Fox remembered.
In March 2020, Fox earned a doctorate in acupuncture and healing herbal medicine. She plans to fly to the U.S. in September to sit for board exams and eventually would love to open an acupuncture clinic in Kansas City.
“You're bringing the body back into balance,” she explained acupuncture. “It's when your body gets out of balance things like insomnia happens, or anxiety. Muscular imbalances lead to chronic pain. It’s also really good for acute pain like sprains, strains, migraines and neck pain.”
Fox admitted her 18-year-old self would’ve been hesitant to try acupuncture in the prime of her career, but now she believes Team USA would benefit by having an acupuncturist on staff. She pointed out the practice would help athletes recover, sleep and better prepare for events. Michael Phelps put the spotlight on the traditional Chinese medicine practice of cupping when he competed with red dots on his back in 2016.
“She has always been full of adventure, but also open-minded,” said Veronica Malone, Fox’s longtime coach and founder of the KC Blazers swim team.
Malone is not surprised one bit her former swimmer is pursuing a new passion focused on helping others.
“I firmly believe the mind runs the body and Catherine is fully vested in that principle. She taught me as much as I, maybe, taught her,” Malone said.
Fox is still connected to swimming. In 2004, she teamed up with Jim Spiers, who now operates learn to swim programs in New York and Texas called SwimJim. Fox has worked with Spiers for over 15 years to help fine-tune and add to the swimming curriculum.
“It’s always interesting when Catherine does come to New York or Texas to work with us because she has always been playing with stuff and ideas. I will see what happens when she comes back from playing in the ocean,” Spiers said from New York City.
As connected as she is to swimming, Fox does not force the sport on her two children, a son, and daughter. She has, of course, taught them both how to swim as a life skill because, after all, swimming was a skill that guided most of her life.
