Following a first-place finish in the 100-meter breaststroke Monday night at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Lilly King qualified for team USA in the 2024 Paris Games. The achievement places King in the record books, as she is the first Indiana women’s swimmer to reach three Olympic games.
Hailing from Evansville, Indiana, King was a two-time state runner-up in the 100-yard breaststroke at Francis Joseph Reitz High School. In the fall of 2015, King joined the Indiana swimming and diving team.
King’s freshman year featured many triumphs, headlined by NCAA titles in the 100-yard and 200-yard breaststroke. King was named the College Swimming & Diving Coaches Association of America National Swimmer of the Year, the unanimous Big Ten Swimmer of the Year and IU Female Athlete of the Year.
The success King earned her first year in Bloomington carried over to her summer, which featured qualification to the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. King won gold for the USA in the 4x100 medley relay team and the 100-meter breaststroke. Her 1:04.93 time in the breaststroke event was a then-Olympic record.
For the rest of her collegiate career, King continued to excel. She was Big Ten Swimmer of the Year and Big Ten Female Athlete of the Year in her sophomore and junior seasons. In her senior season, she received the Honda Sports Award as the top female swimmer in the country.
When King graduated from Indiana in 2019, she held many different records for the university, the Big Ten and the NCAA. King won the 100-yard and 200-yard breaststroke all four years of her collegiate career, becoming only the second female swimmer in NCAA history to sweep two events across their collegiate careers.
King’s victory in the 100-yard breaststroke at the 2019 NCAA Championships featured a time of 55.73 seconds, setting an American, NCAA, NCAA Meet, U.S. Open, Big Ten, Indiana and pool record. At the 2017 World Aquatic Championships, she broke the world record in the 100-meter breaststroke with a time of 1:04.13, a record that still stands today.
King’s performance at the 2020 Tokyo Games was largely successful, albeit without any gold medals to her name. She won silver medals in the 200-meter breaststroke and the 4x100 medley relay as well as a bronze in the 100-meter breaststroke.
Entering the 2024 Paris Games, the 27-year-old King will look to add to her Olympic medal tally in what she has claimed to be her final Olympic games. Even though she hasn’t raced for the Hoosiers in half a decade, the Indiana swim cap she donned Monday night represents the legacy she left behind in the program that persists to this day.
King will compete for Team USA in the 2024 Paris Games beginning July 26.
