King, Murphy punch tickets to 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 Tuesday night in Omaha, Neb., ensuring she will have another big 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.

The entire night went largely as 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 cruised through her busiest day of the trials as the top qualifier in a pair of events.

A world record-holder and another of the biggest trials favorites, King powered to the finish of the 100 breast in 1 minute, 4.79 seconds.

The 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.

Murphy is going back to the Olympics to defend America’s dominance in the men’s backstroke.

The 25-year-old held on to win the 100 back — the first of two spots he hopes to claim in his bid to pull off another backstroke sweep at the Tokyo Games.

On the women’s side, Regan Smith claimed her first Olympic berth in the 100 back.

The 19-year-old from Lakeville, Minn., touched first in 58.35, not as fast as her then-record time at the 2019 world championships (57.57), but surely good enough to set her up as one of the gold medal contenders in Tokyo.

Kieran Smith, who has never even been on the national team (and is no relation to Regan Smith), continued his breakout performance in Omaha.

The 21-year-old added to his victory in the 400 free with a winning time of 1:45.29 in the 200.

Townley Haas, who finished fifth in the 200 free at the Rio Games, earned a sure spot in the 4x200 free relay and a likely individual race as the second American by taking the runnerup spot in 1:45.66.

Drew Kibler and Andrew Seliskar finished third and fourth, respectively, to also earn Olympic berths as relay swimmers.

Coming off a relatively slow winning time in the 400 freestyle, Ledecky took on her busiest day of the meet with the preliminaries of the 1,500 free and the prelims and semifinals of the 200 free.

Ledecky was top qualifier in the metric mile in the morning, and came back to post the fastest time in the 200 semis in the evening (1:55.83). She will try to lock up two more races for Tokyo in the finals today.

Diving

Orange County aquatics has produced its first Olympian for the Tokyo Games.

Diver Brandon Loschiavo, a product of Huntington Beach High and the Mission Viejo Nadadores, made the U.S. team for the Summer Olympics over the weekend at the U.S. Trials in Indianapolis.

Loschiavo won the 10-meter platform final with a score of 1421.00 to earn his first Olympic berth, and become perhaps the first Orange County male diver to qualify for the Olympics since Matt Scoggin of the Nadadores in 1992.