At a live broadcast of NPR’s “Wait Wait… Don’t Tell Me” from the Indiana University Auditorium in Bloomington, 3-time Olympic gold-medalist and Indiana alumna Lilly King made an appearance, detailing some of her times as a competitor, her engagement at the Olympic Trials, and competed on the live trivia show.
King reflected on her viral proposal in Indianapolis at the US Olympic Team Trials, as her now husband, James Wells, surprised King on deck after punching her ticket to the games in the 200 breaststroke. King mentioned her shock in seeing him; “I walked down the stairs, and I’m gasping for – you know, I just finished a race. I’m exhausted. And I saw he was on deck. And he was not supposed to be on deck. I was like, how’d you get down here? Like, they’re going to take you out. Like, what are you doing?”
She also shared how her former Olympic teammate, Annie Lazor, had given her some useful advice prior ot walking down those steps; “Annie Lazor, she’s an Olympic bronze medalist from Tokyo Games. And she was a coach. So she told me – she’s like, hey, just take your cap off after your race. And I was like – we’re very honest with each other, sometimes to the point where it’s not so nice. And I was like, if you – just tell me I look awful in my cap. Like, just tell the truth. And she’s like, no, just – you got to trust me. Just take your cap off.”
The conversation then switched to more of her competitive career, mainly focusing on the character that Lily King exudes to the world, a fierce and feisty competitor, at one point in the show, as host Peter Sagal even deems her the “Dennis Rodman of International Swimming”.
The show features a rotating panel of comedians and guests who test their knowledge against the week’s news in a fun and fast-paced format, the questions that King was tasked with answering centered around height, mainly the popularized term “short kings”, with one of the questions asking what large name actually was a below averaged height, with options being astronaut Neil Armstrong, Joseph Stalin, or Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. King quickly eliminated the larger-than-life Hollywood Star and former wrestler Johnson, and ultimately agreed to the live crown, opting for option B. Joseph Stalin, where she would be correct.
Ultimately, King would end up answering two out of three questions correctly and capped off her appearance on the live show.
glad she went on NPR. I support them as much as I can.
It was a great show!