When Anchorage pools reopened before Seward’s did, Murray invited Jacoby to train with the Northern Lights Swim Club. Then she started training more than ever. The pandemic proved particularly beneficial for her because her training changed dramatically because of it.Īt first, she couldn’t swim at all because COVID-19 shut down swimming pools across Alaska, including the Seward pool where Jacoby trains with the Tsunami Swim Club. Olympic swim team, the fourth-youngest on a 50-member team. Jacoby is one of 11 teenagers who qualified for the U.S. “If this meet had happened last year, I would not be where I am today,” Jacoby said. Olympic Trials to 2021, and the delay was a boon to young swimmers, who got another year to mature physically and mentally. It took a global pandemic to get Jacoby to Tokyo.ĬOVID-19 pushed the 2020 Summer Olympics and the 2020 U.S. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson) 2020′s silver lining Lydia Jacoby, left, leads a preliminary heat at the Olympic Trials. She has it, and we’ve worked hard not to change it.” “She has absolutely without a doubt the best breaststroke kick I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of Olympic-caliber athletes. “Her feet catch like a sail, and she has such power from her upper legs and glutes that she is just throwing water back with immense power,” Murray said. Jacoby doesn’t rise out of the water the way King does at the start of her stroke her profile is lower and she moves more water off her lower body than her upper body. “If you take Lilly King’s stroke and my stroke, hers is all upper-body and mine is all lower-body. Murray calls Jacoby’s kick “a God-given gift.” He could be right, because Jacoby doesn’t remember a time when she didn’t have it. She has a combination of strong legs and flexible ankles that propel her through the water with great force. It’s what generates much of a breaststroker’s speed, and it’s what separates Jacoby from most breaststrokers. “That kick has always been really great.” “Since then she’s been on everybody’s radar, at least in Alaska. “She had a really great breakout meet as a 10-year-old at the Western zone championships,” said longtime Anchorage swim coach Cliff Murray. Four weeks earlier, as a freshman on the Seward High School swim team, she set a state record in the 100-yard breaststroke at the Alaska state high school championships.Įven before that, Alaska coaches knew Jacoby was one to watch. She was 14 when she qualified for the 2020 Olympic Trials by hitting the qualifying standard for the 100-meter breaststroke at the U.S. Jacoby didn’t emerge suddenly from a pool in Omaha like some fully formed Olympic goddess born from a foamy sea. Lydia Jacoby signs autographs at the airport after arriving home from the Olympic Trials. “The more pressure there is, the more I want to succeed.” “During recruiting, one of the coaches called me a gamer, and that’s definitely a good term,” Jacoby said. She is nervous but eager to dive in with the big dogs. Not a problem, said Jacoby, who just finished her junior year of high school and is a year away from joining the University of Texas swim team, which won a recruiting war to get her. No dipping-of-the-toe in any youth or junior world meets in the years leading up to this. The top two finishers clinched Olympic berths - and immediately became medal contenders.Īnd so Alaska’s first Olympic swimmer could bring home Alaska’s first Olympic medal in swimming, which is pretty wild when you consider the Tokyo Games will mark Jacoby’s first international competition. Jacoby became Alaska’s first Olympic-bound swimmer on June 15 when she came from behind to claim second place in the women’s 100-meter breaststroke at the Olympic Trials in Omaha, Nebraska. Meet 17-year-old Lydia Jacoby, Olympic medal contender. “We didn’t quite expect it to turn out the way it did.” She oughta know what to do if she falls,” Rich Jacoby said. “Honestly, that’s how we got started on this whole thing, trying to make sure she felt comfortable in the water if something went wrong. And they have a daughter who took swimming lessons when she was a little girl because so much of the family’s life is around water. They have a small sailboat they use to explore their front yard, Resurrection Bay. Leslie Jacoby is a licensed boat captain and the educational coordinator for a marine science program at Kenai Fjords Tours in Seward. Rich Jacoby is a licensed boat captain and a maritime instructor at the Alaska Vocational Technical Center in Seward. Seward swimmer Lydia Jacoby is Alaska's first Olympic-bound swimmer.
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