{"id":485013,"date":"2021-08-09T13:06:29","date_gmt":"2021-08-09T20:06:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=485013"},"modified":"2021-08-10T08:11:32","modified_gmt":"2021-08-10T15:11:32","slug":"the-top-five-womens-swimming-performances-from-the-tokyo-olympics-race-videos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/the-top-five-womens-swimming-performances-from-the-tokyo-olympics-race-videos\/","title":{"rendered":"The Top Five Women’s Swimming Performances from the Tokyo Olympics (Race Videos)"},"content":{"rendered":"

T<\/strong>he Top Five Women’s Swimming Performances from the Tokyo Olympics (Race Videos)<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Tokyo Olympics are finished, and now, swimming fans will spend years remembering and rewatching the many memorable moments from those nine days \u2014 although maybe no race from Tokyo will be re-watched as much as the unforgettable men’s 400 freestyle relay from the 2008 Olympics, when Jason Lezak<\/strong> ran down France’s\u00a0Alain Bernard<\/strong> with an anchor split that remains the fastest in history.<\/p>\n

Basically every gold-medal final at an Olympics is an amazing race in some manner, and there are a lot of races that were really difficult to leave off this list. But these are the top five single races from Tokyo and the race video for each one.<\/p>\n

5. Lydia Jacoby’s Stunning 100 Breaststroke Gold Medal<\/strong><\/h3>\n

No list of top performances from Tokyo would be complete without the women’s 100 breaststroke final, where 17-year-old Lydia Jacoby\u00a0<\/strong>shocked the world<\/a> by beating her heavily favored American teammate\u00a0Lilly King<\/strong> and also new Olympic-record holder\u00a0Tatjana Schoenmaker<\/strong> to win Olympic gold. Jacoby has burst onto the scene into the last year, only breaking 1:08 for the first time in the fall of 2020 \u2014 when it took 1:04.95 to win Olympic gold \u2014 and only becoming a serious contender to qualify for the Olympics in April. But during her rapid rise<\/a>, Jacoby has typically been behind the field at the start before accelerating and passing her competitors down the stretch. So in the Olympic final, when shewas only a few tenths behind Schoenmaker and basically even with King at the halfway point, Jacoby had a shot. The result was the biggest upset in any women’s race at the Olympics.<\/p>\n