2020 TOKYO SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES
- When: Pool swimming: Saturday, July 24 – Sunday, August 1, 2021
- Open Water swimming: Wednesday, August 4 – Thursday, August 5, 2021
- Where: Olympic Aquatics Centre / Tokyo, Japan
- Heats: 7 PM / Semifinals & Finals: 10:30 AM (Local time)
- Full aquatics schedule
- SwimSwam Event Previews
- Entry Lists
- Live Results
- Day 3 Finals Heat Sheet
The women’s 100m breaststroke race tonight saw 17-year-old Lydia Jacoby storm to the wall first to grab the gold, clocking a massive personal best of 1:04.95 in the process.
Despite South Africa’s Tatjana Schoenmaker having been faster in the earlier rounds, producing a new Olympic Record of 1:04.82, it was the United States Jacoby who put up the monster swim when it counted to beat Schoenmaker and teammate Lilly King. Schoenmaker hit the wall in 1:05.22 while King rounded out the top 3 in 1:05.54.
For Jacoby, the teen’s 1:04.95 eradicates the previous United States National Age Group Record of 1:05.28, a time she held herself from her performance just last month at the U.S. Olympic Trials.
Splits for that previous race included 30.94/34.34 while tonight the Alaskan opened in 30.74 and brought it home in 34.21.
With her gold medal-worthy performance, Jacoby now lands herself on the list of exclusive sub-1:05 swimmers, ranking as the 7th fastest performer in history at just 17 years of age.
All-Time Top Women’s LCM 100 Breaststroke Performers
1. Lilly King (USA) – 1:04.13, 2017
2. Ruta Meilutyte (LTU) – 1:04.35, 2013
3. Yuliya Efimova (RUS) – 1:04.36, 2017
4. Jessica Hardy (USA) – 1:04.45, 2009
5. Tatjana Schoenmaker (RSA) – 1:04.82, 2021
6. Rebecca Soni (USA) – 1:04.84, 2009
7. Lydia Jacoby (USA) – 1:04.95, 2021
US Womens medley relay aint looking like certain gold anymore , thats for sure.
Id say Canada and Australia are favourites now. Their Peaty-like breastroke advantage, has all but dissapeared.
Our (Australia) breastroker regressed from trials and it’s yet to be seen if Cate Campbell can still do 51 splits to compensate for the breast weakness.
Why are women and men swimming the breastroke so differently ? If you compare Peaty or Kamminga to Schoenmaker or Jacoby, the body position is completly different, the arms over the water etc.. Is there a logical explanation ?
There has always been a lot of variation on breaststroke. Remember the Hungarian wave breaststroke? Mike Barrowman and Amanda Beard swam that way…then it went away. I like the old school flat breaststroke.
Thanks for the great answer ! I completly forgot about the Hungarian Wave, you’re right about that
I also didn’t think about Shymanovich who has a very narrow kick
I feel like Lily knew she was not going to win this race. She has spent what 4 weeks with Jacoby??. I think she saw the writing on the wall. I think she created her ready room distractions for the benefit of Jacoby/ sh*ts and giggles. Lily looked different this ready room. I can’t pin it. But she was more relaxed in her leg slapping etc Kind of smiling not smirking or mean with it. Then she went to tell Jacoby something by the blocks. Then she was not shocked at all by defeat. Ready to congratulate her. I rooted for Jacoby all the way and am not trying to save face for King (not that I have that power… Read more »
Totally agree with this assessment of King.
Perfect observation – King can not fake reactions
How does that humble pie taste, Lily?
With the amount of time she improved working the cal girls and McKeever, I wonder if she will reconsider going to cal instead of texas. Probably not but just an interesting thought. I remember her and lily king saying she does a lot more sprint stuff so it would make sense
Cal can only wish. Let’s hope Texas women continue to improve so we have a really competitive NCAAs.
Hope not. I like her in Austin with Wyatt and Eddie and the rest of the crew at Texas. But her, life her choice. Thanks Lydia you brought joy to many yesterday !!!
Can someone enlighten me what does it means when the commentator said that lydia jacoby breaststroke style is old school?
Old school breastroke is lower and wider vs. newer is narrower and more up and down. Michael Andrew also has old school breastroke too. Both stroke types, obviously, work!
I believe that comment came from Rowdy too, so just disregard it as babble
As an 80s breaststroke before rule changes the old breast stroke is hands stay below the water- the head rises with shoulder but not a lot, head stays above surface and kick is wider.
One of my favorite races of all time, right up there with Dirado in 2016. I’ve been trying not to root against Lilly King but it’s impossible as long as they keep replaying her own words and actions. I was desperate for Schoenmaker for force Lilly to rally late. Then once Jacoby kept it close the first 50 I sensed there were 2 chances to take down Lilly and not 1. So awesome. Lots of swimmers have managed one gold in a row. Lilly joins them. Rebecca Soni has 2 individual breaststroke golds and 2 silvers to 1 gold and 1 bronze for Lilly.
Thank you for saving humanity, Lydia!