Girls athlete of the week
The Post-Gazette’s top female performer or the past seven days
The past week: King dominated at the WPIAL Class 2A swimming finals at Pitt’s Trees Pool. She won the 100- and 200-yard freestyles, setting records in both, while also being a member of the team champion Vikings’ 200 and 400 freestyle relay teams.
Check this out: King, a sophomore, is quickly moving among the pantheon of the greatest WPIAL swimmers of all time. She has four individual and four relay titles in the past two years and set a WPIAL record every time she swam. Her time of 48.58 in the 100-yard freestyle on Friday was the 16th-fastest in NFHS history. She has already qualified for the 2024 Olympic trials in the 50-meter freestyle. You swam four events and set five WPIAL records? I don’t know if I expected that. I was hoping that I would beat my 100 freestyle record from last year and I knew our relays could break the records because everybody’s been doing phenomenal this season. I’m really excited about the 200 free record. I wasn’t expecting it, but I’m excited and really happy with how it turned out.
How do you prepare for states? I’ll definitely talk to my coach about how I’m going to taper and get ready for that meet, but it’s just going to be putting in more hard work and working on the finer details to get everything down to a point where it’s perfect. You’ve already qualified for the Olympic trials. How does states compare? States is different because it’s in high school. It’s a whole different atmosphere and I have a team to experience that with. It’s probably the most fun meet that I’ve ever been to because I experience it with my best friends.
You switched your main
event, the 50 freestyle, for the 200 freestyle this year. How much convincing did it take?
Actually, it was about a day or two. It didn’t take that much. I thought I would be doing the 50 and the 100, and I mentioned it to my coach and she mentioned the 200, and that was news to me. But I sat down and talked to her and knew it would be better for the team if I did that. It’s early, but with the Olympic trials next year, have you considered taking the high school season off to train?
That’s really far in advance. I haven’t really thought about that yet. What do you do to step away from swimming? I don’t really know. I spend a lot of time in the water, but I like to read, go shopping and spend time with my friends. Any time I get, I want to be doing something. Are you streaming anything
new? Nothing new, but this is probably my third time watching “Gilmore Girls.” I watch it all the time.
— By Keith Barnes