For all Simone Manuel has accomplished in swimming — seven Olympic medals (two gold), 20 World Championships medals (13 gold) and holding the title of fastest American woman in history for seven years — she is experiencing something new this week.

Manuel is among the Olympic champions entered in the USA Swimming World Short Course Championships trials in Westmont, Illinois, live on Peacock and NBCSN from Thursday through Saturday.

The top two swimmers in each event qualify for the team, plus more in the 100m and 200m freestyles for relays, so long as the overall roster does not exceed 20 men and 20 women. They also have to meet international time standards for their event.

Manuel, an Olympian in 2016, 2021 and 2024, has rarely raced in short-course meters. USA Swimming’s database lists her previous experience at Duel in the Pool meets in 2013 and 2015, and then two weeks ago at a prep meet for these trials. She also won six individual NCAA titles in short-course yards swimming for Stanford.

Short-course meters meets are held in 25-meter pools rather than the 50-meter pools used at the Olympics and traditional World Championships. The short course season is also in the fall, outside the typical major meet season in the summer, so top Americans don’t always participate.

USA Swimming introduced a trials meet this year after previously picking short-course worlds teams based on previous long-course times.

“Racing in the fall, there’s not many opportunities for pros to do that,” Manuel said of having a go at short course. “It’s always good to have a good dress rehearsal of intense competition. I just thought it’d be really good to go to this meet and kind of just see where I’m at, because if I didn’t go to this meet, then the first competition of the season for me would be U.S. Open in December. So it would be a long stretch without having that racing.”

Manuel is coming off another career first: competing at a major international meet in an American pool at the Pan Pacific Championships in Irvine, California, in August.

She anchored the U.S. women’s 4x100m freestyle relay to victory in American record time, plus placed fourth in the individual 100m free.

“Honestly, Pan Pacs was not what I had hoped for and what I felt like I had trained for, so it was a disappointing meet,” she said. “I made the A final in the 100m free, but would have loved to get on that podium. So that was a bummer for me, getting a season best by like a half a tenth. I didn’t really see the improvements that I thought I had made or that I had wanted to see. So it was a tough meet. Sometimes that happens, and you have to get through it. But, overall, I mean, the best thing I can say is it was really nice to be on that 4x100m free relay and compete at home on United States soil.”

Manuel went back to work in Austin, Texas, where she trains in a decorated pro group under coach Bob Bowman. Manuel saves Bowman’s daily practice sheets — which he adorns with motivational quotes.

“They kind of serve as a visual representation of every day that I showed up and did the work that was asked of me,” she said.

Manuel said at Pan Pacs that the next Olympics, should she make the team at trials, will “probably be my last meet ever.”

“It’s kind of just been on my mind, probably since I found out that LA was hosting the Olympics in ’28,” she said. “You’re kind of looking at the years, and you’re doing the math. OK, I’ll be 32. If I’m still enjoying swimming, if I’m still hopefully improving, I’d love to go to a home Olympics, so I think that was part of it. It has been a huge goal of mine.

“The reason why I think it’s going to be my last one is because I see swimming usually as a four-year plan. I think a lot of us at this level sometimes think of it that way. Of course, you have to take each day by day, but you’re usually always focused on trying to get to that Olympic meet. I don’t want to (say), ‘Oh, I’ll swim until 2029. Oh, I’ll swim until 2030.’ Because then I feel like it’s going to end up being like I’ll swim until 2032, and I think that there’s a lot of possible opportunities for me outside of the swimming world and inside the swimming world, but just not competing, and I want to take advantage of that. I mean, I’m married. I’d love to start a family if we’re able to, so there’s just a lot of other things that I feel like would be more important in my life than swimming.”

Until then, Manuel strives to “squeeze out every bit of talent I have.” It’s talent and work ethic that produced one of the most clutch performers in the sport’s history.

“It’s about personal growth, personal goals that I have,” she said. “If I still feel like I have the capabilities to achieve them, then I’m going to shoot for it.”