(Video) Lilly King Ready to Respond to Efimova’s Challenge in 100 Breast

lilly-king-
Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick

Editorial content for the 2017 USA Swimming Nationals is sponsored by TritonWear. Visit TritonWear.com for more information on our sponsor. For full Swimming World coverage, check event coverage page.

By David Rieder.

Lilly King is not the type of swimmer who always stays in her own lane. Whenever she feels like she has a serious challenger in a race, she steps up.

When she knows a race won’t be super competitive, she has been known to fall flat—like at this year’s NCAA championships, when she won the 100-yard breast by 1.3 seconds. She didn’t break her own American record in the event, and when asked to assess her performance, King said that it “sucked.”

“Last year at this time I went 56.8, and we were all going crazy. Tonight I went 56.7? I don’t know—I just know it was slow,” she said that night. “I was out slow, and I was back slow. It was what it was. I wasn’t really feeling it tonight.”

Coming in seeded so far ahead of the field, King had no real rival to chase. Not an issue she had at her first Olympics in Rio, when she found one quickly and turned the rivalry into international news.

FINA World Championships Yuliya Efimova

Photo Courtesy: R-Sport / MIA Rossiya Segodnya

Before last summer, Russian breaststroker Yulia Efimova had been twice suspended for positive doping tests, leaving her status for Rio in flux for months. Finally, she had been cleared to compete less than 24 hours before the Olympic swimming competition began.

“It is unfortunate that this controversy going on in the sport right now,” King said after the 100 breast semi-finals in Rio. “It was the IOC’s decision (to allow Efimova to compete), and I’m going to respect that decision, even if it’s something I don’t agree with.”

The next day, King won gold, and Efimova settled for silver. But as the two prepare to meet again in the 100 breast this summer at the World Championships, Efimova has the upper-hand in the times department.

At the Mare Nostrum meet in Canet, Efimova blasted a 1:04.82 in the 100 breast, quicker than the 1:04.93 King swam to win gold in Rio. Earlier on the Mare Nostrum circuit, Efimova had swum a 2:19.83 in the 200 breast, becoming the first woman to break 2:20 this year.

King will have her chance to respond in the pool at this week’s U.S. Nationals, and she is eager to do just that.

“I love competition, and that’s why I’m in the sport,” she said. “I don’t think there’s a point to having a rivalry if we’re going to go back and forth. I love to see people put fast times up, and I love trying to beat them the week after. Hopefully, I’ll have a good swim, be 1:04, a little bit lower than she went, but we’ll see what happens.”

If Efimova’s effort in the 100 breast now makes her the slight favorite for the event come Budapest, King would be more than okay with that.

“That’s really been a change this last year, going from being the underdog pretty much my whole career to being not the underdog,” she said. “Then when people put up faster times than me, I go back to being the underdog. It’s very familiar territory for me, and I like having that extra pressure, having that person to chase.”

This week at Nationals, the pressure will be on King to match or surpass her Russian rival. Come Worlds, the pressure will be on from a lane or two over. And if the world has learned anything about Lilly King over the past 12 months, those are the situations she relishes, the situations where she shines.

Watch a full replay of King’s pre-meet press conference at U.S. Nationals:

Watch more pre-meet press conference videos by clicking here.

Subscribe
Notify of
guest

Welcome to our community. We invite you to join our discussion. Our community guidelines are simple: be respectful and constructive, keep on topic, and support your fellow commenters. Commenting signifies that you agree to our Terms of Use

1 Comment
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
marklewis
marklewis
6 years ago

Just what I thought. Yulia is just going to make Lilly swim even faster, maybe to a WR.

1
0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x