When senior Gretchen Walsh dove into the pool for her final collegiate event March 22, it was business as usual. From the starting horn to the finish line, she and her Cavaliers blazed their way to a national title in the 400-yard freestyle relay. Walsh anchored the final leg and led Virginia to finish a full 2.62 seconds ahead of second place Tennessee.
Walsh, in her senior campaign, had claimed a national title in an event for the 25th time. Celebration ensued. Later that day, Virginia won its fifth consecutive national championship — the first five-peat by any program in school history. Mission accomplished.
And then, a pause rang throughout the Weyerhaeuser King County Aquatics Center in Federal Way, Wash. A bittersweet pause. One that was felt by the entire swimming world.
At the conclusion of that relay and meet, Gretchen’s collegiate career was over. It had ended triumphantly, but still a symphony of silence rang out louder than any starting horn ever could. That heavy, deafening silence echoed for Walsh. It also echoed for her sister, graduate student Alex Walsh, who had completed her finale as well.
The Walsh sisters, the headliners of collegiate swimming, had completed their college careers.
Throughout their time at Virginia, they took the swimming world by storm. They won Olympic medals and, of course, five straight NCAA Championships. So now, a question arises — how can anyone possibly describe their greatness?
According to a teammate, senior diver Lizzy Kaye, it is about character.
“I forget that they're literally famous and some of the fastest women in the world,” Kaye said. “And literally the most incredible people because they are so humble, and they work so hard, that it's not like they're in practice strutting around like they’re superior. No, they treat us and we treat them as if we're equals.”
They may be equals as teammates and friends. Just about no one, however, can claim to be the Walshes’ equal in the pool. Expanding the scope to the entire history of Virginia Athletics, very few superstars have ascended to the astronomic heights that this duo reached.
“The Walshes have just meant so much to our program, and to me,” Coach Todd DeSorbo said following the 2025 National Championships. “You know, we've had a great connection. I was actually telling this to Alex, I made her cry before the butterfly. She's just obviously a super talented athlete, but she's an even better person. And both Gretchen and Alex are the same way.”
The sentiment is exemplified in many ways, one of which was at the sisters’ final home meet. After the meet concluded, Gretchen spent half an hour with young fans. While teammates had already departed, Gretchen interacted with every kid — signing autographs, taking pictures and sharing advice.
That is not something the average student-athlete does. Rather, that is an example of the selflessness found from the all-time greats of a given sport — a mindset they embodied as teammates as well.
“What I really want to be remembered by, I think, is my leadership,” Gretchen said. “I was a captain this year, and I take a lot of pride in that. I want to be remembered for being a good teammate, bringing the positive energy to practice every day and pushing my teammates to new heights in the pool — and out of the pool as well — but just overall, hopefully contributing to what it means to be a Virginia Cavalier on the women’s swim and dive team.”
At the 2024 National Championships, where Gretchen did not just dominate her own events — she was a leading cheerleader for her teammates. When Kaye had scored points at the NCAA Championships — a rarity for a Virginia diver — Gretchen was the first to celebrate with her.
“I remember one instance when I was at NCAAs last year when I actually scored,” Kaye said. “Gretchen literally had tears running down her face because she knew how important it was for me and I was just like, ‘Wow, I can't believe that.’ Like, somebody that's winning every single thing actually cares this much about the points that I'm getting, and, Alex, too.”
The Walshes are evidently of admirable character, but the accolades are obviously pretty impressive. Combined, the sisters earned a total of 48 national titles across various events, in addition to their five team championships and Olympic success. Plus, in 2024, Gretchen was honored as the ACC Student-Athlete of the Year.
Braden Keith, the editor-in-chief of SwimSwam, tabs historic feats as primary evidence to answer the question of “just how good are the Walshes?”
“Gretchen especially, is sort of rewriting the paradigms of what people think fast swimming times are,” Keith said.
Statistical evidence lies in Gretchen’s historic numbers on a website called Swimcloud, which tracks swimmers’ data.
“Gretchen's times are so far outside of the norm that the system flags them as false times,” Keith said. [It is as if] this must be a typo … an error in the results, because they're so fast our math doesn't compute.”
Director of Athletics Carla Williams has a slightly different answer to the question of the Walsh sisters’ greatness.
“There aren’t enough words to adequately express how proud we are of Alex and Gretchen,” Williams said in a written statement to The Cavalier Daily. “We are just in awe of the amazing things they have accomplished in the pool, classroom and community. Their dominance in the sport has been unprecedented, and I don’t think we’ll see it repeated.”
An example of said dominance came at the 2025 Eddie Reese Showdown in Austin, Texas. The Walsh sisters claimed a few national records en route to an absolute annihilation of two other top-10 teams. That is about how meets usually went for the Cavaliers. First place, G. Walsh. First place, A. Walsh. First place, Virginia.
They always impressed. And not just as leaders, teammates or swimmers. They did it all — which includes building a joint business portfolio. The sisters have a swimwear collection, as well as an NIL agreement with Cav Futures, the University’s official NIL collective.
And now, after unfathomably consistent success, the final page closes on a sensational chapter. Both sisters will continue their professional swim careers, and Virginia will begin to reload its roster for a sixth consecutive title push. While the Walshes will still continue to train for the Olympics at the Aquatic & Fitness Center, they turn from stars to spectators on the quest for an NCAA record sixth consecutive national championship.
“It's been a very successful season, or just four years with U.Va.,” Gretchen said. “I feel like even from my first year, I knew that there was something special in store at Virginia for me, and everything just kind of clicked when I got there. Clearly, the stars have aligned and I have accomplished my wildest dreams here.”
The story has reached a satisfactory conclusion. And over the past five years, an answer has emerged — there truly is no perfect way to explain the Walshes’ greatness. They are world-class teammates. They are titans of the sport. They are some of the greatest Cavaliers of all time. And, of course, their names will forever be synonymous with victory and Virginia.
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