Missy Franklin is co-writing with her parents a book, “Relentless Spirit,” on her rise in swimming that’s to be released Dec. 6, her publicist confirmed.
“We’re writing like a family memoir, so there’s obviously going to be swimming is a part of that,” Franklin said Wednesday ahead of a meet in Orlando that starts Thursday. “It’s a little bit of a mix of us as a family and really how we were able to stay true to ourselves and stay true to us as who we were as we went through this process. We just wanted to give people and families more insight to how we did that and how we interact as a family.”
Franklin, 20, won four gold medals at the 2012 Olympics and six gold medals at the 2013 World Championships.
She goes into the Rio Olympic year as an underdog after earning zero individual gold medals at the 2015 World Championships, following a busy 2014-15 that included a major back injury in August 2014, turning professional in March 2015 and moving back to Colorado from California to train last May.
Franklin joins the most decorated active U.S. male and female swimmers in coming out with a book.
Michael Phelps had two books, one after each of the 2004 and 2008 Olympics. His first book, “Beneath the Surface,” came out in 2005 when he was 19.
Natalie Coughlin, tied for the most Olympic medals won by a U.S. woman with 12, came out with her book, “Golden Girl,” in 2006 at age 23.
Franklin, Phelps and Coughlin are among the headliners of a USA Swimming Pro Series meet in Orlando starting Thursday.
NBC Sports Live Extra will stream the Friday and Saturday finals live at 6 p.m. ET. USASwimming.org will have a live webcast of the entire meet.
