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By David Rieder.
In all the highest-pressure moments of her career, Lilly King has come through with her best efforts. It’s hard to forget her showdowns with Yulia Efimova at both the 2016 Olympics and 2017 World Championships, the second of which King entered as an underdog and left with her first world record.
King has had her challenges at the NCAA level, too, notably in the 2017 final of the 200 breast. She knew Kierra Smith, a Canadian Olympian and a then-senior at Minnesota, would be coming for her, and she did just enough to hold off Smith by four tenths.
But when it comes to the 100-yard event at the college level, King has precious few challengers. Entering this year’s final, her best time of 56.30 was more than a second and a half quicker than the next-fastest best time in the field. Being so far ahead of the field affected her in 2017, and King afterwards said that her race “sucked.” She just had not been excited for the moment.
Lilly King and Ray Looze — Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
This year, King will not face off against Efimova, so she likely won’t be challenged in a short course or long course 100 breast all year. And especially given those circumstances, Indiana head coach Ray Looze admitted that “it’s a challenge to keep Lilly motivated.”
So this year, he’s tried to put more of King’s focus on the 200 breast by assigning longer repetitions in practice, and she has focused on fixing a slight flaw in her pullouts and trained a larger percentage of IM—which paid off when she picked up three points for the Hoosiers in the 200 IM consolation final Thursday night.
Looze explained that the 200 breast was a more important race for King at this year’s NCAA championships than the 100, simply because of the quality of competition in that race, including Texas A&M teammates Sydney Pickrem and Bethany Galat, the latter of whom won silver in the 200-meter breast at the World Champs.
Still, Looze expected that King wouldn’t come out flat again in the 100 breast final in Columbus.
“She got what she deserved last year as far as not going a best time because she had a little bit of a hangover from the Olympics. She’s trained well. She’s done a lot of best times in practice,” Looze said. “If it’s not something better, then we didn’t do what we set out to do. She’s got a lot of natural speed, so even though we’ve had a lot of 200 emphasis, I think her 100 will benefit from that, too.”
As expected, King dominated the race, winning by 1.72 seconds. And she broke her own American record with a time of 56.25. (Only one other woman has ever cracked 57, by the way.) And then, King rolled her eyes.
“I kind of expected more from myself,” she said. “It’s still a best time, which is great, but I was hoping to go 55. I’ve been talking about 55 for a while. I’m happy with a best time, and it’s a new American record, but still, I expected more from myself.”
According to King, Looze threatened to quit his job if King didn’t break 56 in the 100 breast this season, “so we might be looking for a new coach.” King was kidding—we think.
Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
But as much as they wanted that 55-second 100 breast, it’s the 200-yard event that will be more telling of her progress this week, and King has a challenge on her hands with Pickrem seeded first and Galat looming. Before King, no woman had ever broken 2:04 in the 200-yard breast, but after two years of swimming in the 2:03-range, taking the American record down to 2:03.18, she has something more in mind.
“I’m sick of seeing 2:03 on the board, to be honest,” King said. “I train a lot of aerobic. I feel like I train for the mile half the time. You don’t want to see me swim the mile. I know I definitely have the back half and the front half to have a good race.”
For King, the long game is getting to the Olympics two years down the road in top form, and the key for her coaches is keeping her locked in along the way. King was candid after her 100 breast when she explained that sometimes it’s hard to get up for championship meet after championship meet when she’s already excelled at the Olympic and World level.
So it’s good for her to be challenged, to think someone’s coming for her.
“They’re coming,” King said of her Aggie competitors. “It’s going to be a good race. But we’ll see who takes it out the fastest and brings it home the fastest.”
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Lilly King is amazing because she is determine to set a standard of excellence.
Tell her there is another steroid eating European she will be all over it or her!