![]() Their home is on Resurrection Bay and Jacoby began swimming so she would be safe on the family sailboat. 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. And Jacoby’s childhood swim club includes a Japanese name: the Seward Tsunami Swim Club. ![]() The first time prospectors struck gold in Alaska led to the Klondike Gold Rush in 1896, the year the Modern Olympic Games began. 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.Īlaska’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.īut maybe her performance was written in the stars. 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. 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. When I looked up and saw the scoreboard, it was insane.” “It was crazy,” said Jacoby, whose power comes from her incredible kick. 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. 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. “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.” ![]() 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. The 17-year-old from Seward (population 2,773) came from behind to surge to victory in the women’s 100-meter breaststroke Tuesday. TOKYO – Add another Alaska Gold Rush to the history books after Lydia Jacoby’s surprise win at the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020. So it's nice to be able to come home and step into some different shoes and I think it's really important to separate your sport from your life so that you make sure not to make it all consuming and then get burnt out.Lydia Jacoby celebrates winning gold with third-placed Lilly King during the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 on Jin Tokyo. So much of my life revolves around swimming. “I think any high level of performance, be that athletic or anything else, can be overwhelming. “I think a lot of bigger states have bigger teams and all that, so it's nice to grow up in a place where I had more support personally and more people knew me as a person rather than an athlete or a number. It's a really small community, and I think that's one of the things that has made my swimming experience so special,” she said. _“_I feel really lucky to have grown up in Alaska. The outlier state doesn’t even have an Olympic-sized pool, and the people there know the teenager for her true personality in and out of the sport. Medal Moment | Tokyo 2020: Swimming 100m Breaststroke - L Jacoby (USA)įortunately, Jacoby always has Alaska to fall back on. Naturally, people are going to see me as a swimmer and as an athlete, but it’s been hard to have people only see that side of me," she revealed. “This is something that I have struggled with actually with all the attention. ![]() And then it says “Mamma Mia! Here we go again” because that's my favourite musical as well,” the 18-year-old continued with a smile.īut like some of the characters in the film, Jacoby has also struggled with losing her identity.Īfter her stunning performance in the Olympics, Jacoby’s public profile boomed and she was front and centre of the nation’s sporting media.īut she soon began to feel uneasy being known only as the swimming prodigy. And then I have the longhorn and the Olympic rings on a wave. “I actually have my graduation cap right here that I just decorated and I did like a collage in the background. Swimming World Championship trials.Īfter saying this, she jumped off her seat and came back holding a sentimental piece that she had recently made. And then I also like painting,” she revealed to ahead of the U.S. Music is just one piece of Jacoby’s creative puzzle. People are going to see me as a swimmer and as an athlete, but it’s been hard to have people only see that side of me
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