Former Olympian studies dentistry at University of Louisville

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A University of Louisville student is in his senior year of dental school, but what many people in the clinic don't realize is that he's an Olympian.

"It feels just like last year we got started, and all of a sudden I'm at the top of the totem pole I guess when it comes to students," Anze Tavcar said.

He said with that comes a lot of responsibility.

"I just went through the oral surgery rotation, where last year I would mainly assist and kind of help out a little bit, and this year I'm the one that has to perform them, so sometimes it gets a little uncomfortable or scary, but you just have to kind of push through and figure it out on your own," he said.

When he's in the clinic, what his patients don't know is, he's an Olympian.

"I think there was about 12 of us that went there, so you're just kind of there with your friends having fun, so it doesn't feel like that important of a meet," he said of his time in the Olympics. "It feels kind of the same as like, I don't know, a USA Nationals or European World Championships, stuff like that."

He was a junior at Indiana University when he got the experience of a lifetime to represent his home country of Slovenia in the 2016 Olympics in Rio.

"It's not until after, about a month later, when you kind of disassociate yourself from your swimming friends and go in the general public when you realize, 'yeah, that was pretty cool. I did a big thing there,'" Tavcar said.

He swam in the 100-meter and 200-meter freestyle races, and although he didn't medal, he says it's something he'll never forget.

"The pool is the same length everywhere, so it wasn't that different, but everything outside the pool, that was where the cool stuff was," he said. "The host did a really good job of trying to make us feel important."

It was the words of his coach, "to get out of your comfort zone" that got him there and is helping him to this day.

"I try to employ that in dental school as well," Tavcar said. "I mean it sounds kind of cheesy but when you're out of your comfort zone and kind of push yourself and get uncomfortable, you can make some really great things happen."