By Karen Rosen
TOKYO – Add another Alaska Gold Rush
to the history books after Lydia Jacoby’s surprise win at the Olympic Games
Tokyo 2020.
The 17-year-old from Seward
(population 2,773) came from behind to surge to victory in the women’s
100-meter breaststroke Tuesday.
Not only is Jacoby the first swimmer
from Alaska to win a gold medal, she’s also the first to even make the Olympic
swimming team.
“It’s huge,” Jacoby said. “I think a
lot of big-name swimmers come from big powerhouse clubs and I think that me
coming from a small club in a state with such a small population really shows
everyone that you can do it no matter where you’re from.”
While a Team USA swimmer was favored
in the race, that was Lilly King, the reigning Olympic champion and world
record holder, not Jacoby, who was second at the U.S. Olympic Team Trials –
Swimming in June.
Jacoby was third at 50 meters, then
pulled ahead of King and, in the final 10 meters, overtook Tatjana Schoenmaker
of South Africa, who had set the Olympic record in the semifinal Monday.
“It was crazy,” said Jacoby, whose
power comes from her incredible kick. “I was definitely racing for a medal. I
knew that I had it in me. I wasn’t really expecting a gold medal. When I looked
up and saw the scoreboard, it was insane.”
She put her hand over her mouth as
she saw that she had clocked a personal best of 1 minute 4.95 seconds for the
gold. Schoenmaker took the silver at 1:05.22 and King secured the bronze in
1:05.54, well off her world record of 1:04.13.
Jacoby was the only Team USA Olympic
champion of the day after Regan Smith and Ryan Murphy each won bronze medals in
the 100-meter backstrokes.
Alaska’s motto is “The Last
Frontier,” and a swimming gold medal must have seemed an impossible dream,
especially with only one 50-meter pool in the entire state - and that’s not the
one in which Jacoby trains.
But maybe her performance was written
in the stars. The first time prospectors struck gold in Alaska led to the
Klondike Gold Rush in 1896, the year the Modern Olympic Games began. And
Jacoby’s childhood swim club includes a Japanese name: the Seward Tsunami Swim
Club.
Jacoby’s parents are both licensed
boat captains and her father teaches at a maritime school while her mother is
the educational coordinator for a marine science program at Kenai Fjords Tours
in Seward.
Their home is on Resurrection Bay and
Jacoby began swimming so she would be safe on the family sailboat. She joined
the swim club at age 6 and knew she had a future in the sport when she broke
her first state record at age 12.
“I have been representing my state
for a long time,” Jacoby said. “Now to have the whole country behind me as well
is huge.”
Before the pandemic, the Jacoby
family had been planning to attend the Tokyo Olympics as spectators.
“A year ago I didn’t really have a
real shot at making the team,” Jacoby said.
But in the past two years she has
dropped about 5 seconds off her time in the event.
King, 24, knew about Jacoby from a
swim camp at her alma mater, Indiana University. “I wanted to help her out as
much as I could,” King said, adding with a laugh. “Unfortunately, I helped her
out too much.”
Jacoby will be a high school senior
this year before going on to the University of Texas, which won an intense
recruiting war.
Because the 25-yard pool in Seward
closed during the pandemic, Jacoby’s family rented an apartment in Anchorage,
which is about two hours away, so she could train. That pool is L-shaped - 25
yards one way and 25 meters the other.
“To be honest, I was a lot more
nervous for semifinals than I was for this race,” Jacoby said. “I definitely
let my nerves get the better of me going into my swim yesterday morning. I was
just trying to channel my energy in a more positive way this morning.”
And she didn’t let King, who tries to
psyche out her opponents, intimidate her. When King lost Monday in the Olympic
semis to Schoenmaker, that was her first long-course loss since 2016. Now she
has lost two in a row.
“I wouldn’t say anything didn’t work
today,” King said of her pre-race strategy. “I’m proud to win a bronze medal
for my country. Just because my best swim wasn’t today doesn’t mean I did
something wrong.”
King said she loved keeping the gold
in the Team USA family, and held up Jacoby’s arm as the champion while they
were still in the pool.
“This kid just had the swim of her
life,” she said. “I definitely knew she was a threat and saw a lot of myself in
her.”
Away from the pool, Jacoby, who has
long red hair, sings and plays stand-up bass and guitar. She was a member of
the Snow River String Band, which played at festivals around Alaska, but the
group has since disbanded as the musicians started going to college.
“I still enjoy playing music and it’s
a great thing to do,” said Jacoby, who has sung the national anthem before
meets and is also a writer, interning at her local paper.
“She’s just a sweetheart,” Smith, 19,
said of her fellow teenager. “She’s someone who you want on your team
absolutely. She’s just a ray of sunshine. I really love her and I’m so happy
for her.”
Smith was also proud of her bronze in
her first Olympic race. Kaylee McKeown of Australia won the 100-meter
backstroke gold in 57.47 seconds, just .02 off her world record. Kylie Masse of
Canada won the silver in 57.72 and Smith was next at 58.05 followed by teammate
Rhyan White in fourth at 58.43.
“It was a super stacked heat, so the
fact that I came away with a medal, I really can’t ask for much more,” Smith
said. “I’m super, super pleased with it.”
In the men’s 100 back, however, a
Team USA six-Games winning streak came to an end. Evgeny Rylov took the gold in
51.98 seconds, followed by Russian Olympic Committee teammate Kliment
Kolesnikov in 52.00. Murphy’s time was 52.19, but the reigning world record
holder said “being third in the world is no slouch.”
He will begin competition in the 200
backstroke Wednesday in which he is also defending champion and in which Team
USA also has a six-Olympic winning streak.
“The Olympics is a pressure cooker,”
Murphy said. “It’s the fastest meet in the world. There’s so much attention on
this; the reason I love the Olympics is
you know you’re getting everyone’s best, and I love the idea of that.”
Want to follow Team USA athletes
during the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020? Visit TeamUSA.org/Tokyo2020 to view the
medal table, results and competition schedule.
Karen Rosen
Karen Rosen has covered every Summer
and Winter Olympic Games since 1992 for newspapers, magazines and websites.
Based in Atlanta, she has contributed to TeamUSA.org since 2009.
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