King wins, has high expectations for Tokyo
Lilly King always seems to back up her big talk.
King is headed back to the Olympics after a victory in the 100-meter breaststroke at the U.S. swimming trials in Omaha, Nebraska, ensuring she will have another huge platform in Tokyo to rip into drug cheats and muse on pretty much anything else that pops into her mind.
“It’s kind of what I expected,” King said.
Also expected, defending Olympic champion Ryan Murphy and former world record-holder Regan Smith claimed the 100 backstroke events.
National team newcomer Kieran Smith added a second race to his Tokyo program with a victory in the 200 freestyle, two days after his triumph in the 400 free.
Katie Ledecky got started on a very busy Wednesday night by winning the 200-meter freestyle, claiming a spot in her second individual event for Tokyo.
Ledecky was set to return about an hour later as an overwhelming favorite in the 1,500 freestyle, a new event for the women at these Olympics.
The 200 free was one of four gold medals that Ledecky won at the Rio Games. She'll get a chance to defend that title after touching in 1 minute, 55.11 seconds, a full body length ahead of the field.
King, a world recordholder and another of the biggest trials favorites, powered to the finish of the 100 breast, her head furiously bobbing up and down as she drove to the wall in 1 minute, 4.79 seconds.
The brash 24-year-old from Evansville, Indiana, got a bit of a challenge from Lydia Jacoby, who locked up the expected second spot on the Olympic team by finishing next in 1:05:28.
This would be Jacoby’s first Olympics.
“I was not expecting Lydia to have that incredible race,” King said. “I’m really excited to have a new partner going into Tokyo.”
In addition to her welldocumented complaints about doping within the sport, King has boldly predicted the American women are capable of winning every individual event in Tokyo – a comment that will surely stir passions in the expected rivalry with the Australians.
“It’s the same race we’ve always had: USA vs. Australia,” King said. “I know they’re swimming really fast at their trials, but so are we.”
Meanwhile, Josh Prenot failed to advance from the preliminaries of the 200-meter breaststroke, a bitter blow for the silver medalist from the 2016 Rio Games.
Prenot said he'll take at least the next year off to “see if I forget how much I currently hate” the sport.
He came in as the No. 4 seed but only managed the 17th-best time of 2 minutes, 13.42 seconds.
Matt Grevers, who won the 100 back at the 2012 London Games and just missed qualifying for the U.S. team five years ago, failed again in what was surely his final bid to make his third Olympics.
The 36-year-old finished sixth in 53.27. He lingered on the deck for a few extra seconds, acknowledging the cheers of the socially distanced crowd.
The expected second spot on the Olympic team went to Hunter Armstrong (52.48).
One of the oldest swimmers at the trials, Grevers called it “a changing of the guard.” He can still be proud of a career that included four gold medals and two silvers at the Olympics.
“The young guys guys going 52s at this meet is pretty awesome,” Grevers said.
ATHLETES WARNED
Athletes coming to Japan for the Tokyo Olympics got a warning as officials rolled out the third and final rendition of so-called Playbooks — the rule books governing behavior for these pandemic-tainted games.
The message: Follow
the rules when the Olympics open in just over five weeks, or else expect a warning or a fine — or anything in between.
“Respect the Playbook, respect the rules,” said Olympic Games Executive Director Christophe Dubi, speaking on a remote with Tokyo organizers.
The Playbooks rolled out Tuesday were for athletes. But updates for others like media, broadcasters, sponsors, and so forth will come within the next few days, and all the Playbook rules are quite similar.
A total of 15,400 athletes are expectedfor the Olympics and Paralympics.