2017 World Championship team member and 2016 Olympian Kelsi Worrell made an announcement on social media on Monday that she would start competing under her married name Dahlia at meets in the future. She posted a picture of her new American flag cap with the name of her husband Thomas Dahlia.
Worrell and Dahlia were married in October 2017 and Worrell has been competing under her maiden name at various meets since. Her maiden name has been present on start lists and heat sheets since she got married, but Dahlia had surfaced a few times on psych sheets. Worrell has officially put those rumors to rest and will officially compete under her married name.
There have been plenty of instances of women taking on their married name in competitions after their weddings. Most notably, Australian Libby Trickett took her husbands name in the lead-up to the 2008 Olympics after she had competed for so many years as Libby Lenton. American Megan Jendrick took her husbands name after she wed her husband after first winning Olympic gold as Megan Quann.
There have also been cases of woman swimmers that did not use their married name like Natalie Coughlin and Dana Vollmer who elected not to compete under their married name.
Kelsi Dahlia will most likely be in action next at the TYR Pro Swim Series in Atlanta the first weekend of March.