Lilly King


Lilly King is an American swimmer who specializes in breaststroke. She currently represents the Cali Condors which is part of the International Swimming League. At the 2016 Summer Olympics she won the gold medal in the 100 meter breaststroke competition and also won a gold medal in the women's 4 Ă— 100 m medley relay, in which she swam the breaststroke leg. She is the current world record holder in 100-metre and 50-metre breaststroke.

Early life

King was born and raised in Evansville, Indiana, the daughter of Mark and Ginny King. Mark ran track and cross-country at Indiana State University and Ginny swam for Eastern Kentucky University and Illinois State University. King's younger brother Alex is a walk-on swimmer at the University of Michigan. King attended FJ Reitz High School, where the school's swim team shared Lloyd Pool with five other teams. The lanes at Lloyd Pool were often crowded with swimmers below King's ability, so in order to help compensate, King added several morning practices a week with the local masters team and joined a competitive swim team called the Newburgh Sea Creatures.

Career

College

King attended Indiana University Bloomington, where she competed for the Indiana Hoosiers swimming and diving team.
At the NCAA Women's Division I Swimming and Diving Championships during her freshman year, she was crowned the NCAA Champion in the 100 yard breaststroke and 200 yard breaststroke. The performance established King as one of the best short course yards breaststroke swimmers in history, setting the American, NCAA, NCAA Meet, U.S. Open, Indiana school, Big Ten, and Georgia Tech Pool records in winning the NCAA titles. That same freshman year she was named the Big Ten Swimmer of the Year, earned four All-America honors, First-Team All-Big Ten, and Big Ten Freshman of the Year. King continued her elite success by claiming the 100 yard breaststroke and 200 yard breaststroke titles throughout her collegiate career and was only the 2nd woman to ever to sweep the two events for all four years. As a senior, she won the Honda Sports Award as the nation's best female swimmer.

2016 Summer Olympics

At the 2016 US Olympic trials in Omaha, King won both the 100 meter breaststroke and the 200 meter breaststroke, qualifying for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.
In the 100-meter breaststroke heats, King finished 1st with a time of 1:05.78 and qualified for the semifinals. There she again finished first with a time of 1:05.70. The next fastest swimmer was Yuliya Yefimova from Russia, the reigning world champion who had previously served a 16-month doping suspension for failing a 2013 drug test. Yefimova also failed a drug test in 2016, but with no research on how long the drug stayed in a person's system, she was not banned or given a suspension. As King looked on from the ready room, where swimmers gather before they race, Yefimova won her semifinal and wagged her index finger. After posting the fastest time in the 100 m breaststroke semifinals, King expressed distaste. In a post-race interview with NBC, King said, "You wave your finger No. 1 and you’ve been caught drug cheating? I’m not a fan." King went on to win the Olympic gold medal in the 100-meter breaststroke, setting an Olympic record of 1:04.93 in the process.
In the 200-meter breaststroke heats, King finished 15th with a time of 2:25.89 and qualified for the semifinals. She finished 7th in her semifinal with a time of 2:24.59. She did not qualify for the final.
USA Today said King and Yefimova's rivalry "was heightened by the backstory, the international rivalry, and the high stakes of a final event. It was the Olympics at its very, very best." Sporting News noted the two "joined the list of the hottest U.S.-Soviet/Russian head-to-heads in sports history." As a result of her approach to the 2016 Summer Olympics and her rivalry with Yefimova, King developed a reputation as being "friendly but fiery, with no filter and no apologies." Some journalists criticized her treatment of Yefimova.

2017 World Championships

At the 2017 US Nationals, the qualification meet for the World Aquatics Championships in Budapest, King swept the breaststroke events. She won the 50-meter breaststroke with a time of 29.66, the 100-meter breaststroke with 1:04.95, and the 200-meter breaststroke with 2:21.83.
In her first event, King won the 100-meter breaststroke with a world record time of 1:04.13. King's American teammate Katie Meili finished second and Yulia Efimova touched third. The race was highly anticipated because Efimova had nearly broken the former world record and mockingly wagged her finger during the semifinal.

2019

2019 World Championships

At the 2018 US Nationals, the qualification meet for the World Aquatics Championships in Gwangju, King again swept the breaststroke events. She dominated the 50-meter breaststroke with a time of 29.82 and the 100-meter breaststroke in 1:05.36. King also placed 5th in the 200-meter breaststroke.
In her first event, King won the 100-meter breaststroke in a time of 1:04.93. She also won the 50 breaststroke easily with a 29.84. Lastly, King was a part of the world record-breaking 400 meter medley relay with Regan Smith, Kelsi Dahlia, and Simone Manuel in a time of 3:50.40.

International Swimming League

In 2019 she was a member of the inaugural International Swimming League representing the Cali Condors, who finished third place in the final match in Las Vegas, Nevada in December. King was the only swimmer in the league to go undefeated in multiple matches winning all 16 events she participated in throughout the season.

Honors

On September 11, 2018, the city of Evansville approved the new Deaconess Aquatic Center, which is to replace Lloyd Pool, within which the facility's competition pool is to be named in honor of King, who personally pushed for the project.

World records