Indiana’s Lilly King continued her sensational freshman campaign by shattering the American, U.S. Open and NCAA records in the 200 breaststroke at the NCAA Championships.
King crushed a 2:03.59 to take a half-second off the previous national mark, set in 2014 by Notre Dame’s Emma Reaney.
That completes a breaststroke sweep for King, who also set a new American record in the 100 breast yesterday.
It’s been a week of barrier-smashing for the Hoosier, who became the first woman ever under 57 in the 100 and now becomes the first under 2:04 in the 200.
Her finals swim included a 59.04 opening 100, a time that would have put her 8th in the individual 100 breaststroke by itself.
In fact, the only difference between her 2:06.4 prelims swim and the 2:03.59 that broke the record at night was the back half. King was eerily similar in her front half splits, going 27.2 and 31.8 for her first 50 splits in both races. At night, though, she came back in 1:04.55 (32.20/32.35) compared to 1:07.34 (33.20/34.14) in prelims.
Here’s a look at King’s splits compared to Reaney’s when she set the record at this meet two years ago:
| King 2016 | Reaney 2014 |
| 27.23 | 27.87 |
| 31.81 | 31.48 |
| 32.20 | 32.01 |
| 32.35 | 32.70 |
| 2:03.59 | 2:04.06 |
In an interesting twist, King has now taken apart both breaststroke records set at the same 2014 NCAA meet. The 100 mark was previously held by Breeja Larson from one day earlier than Reaney’s swim.
200 breast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-PIGD3rKHxc
I’ve found her 2 races in video
100 breast
https://twitter.com/IUSwimAndDive/status/710978304996614144
In a LC and Olympic perspective, Lilly King performances at Ncaa finals are the most interesting. Above all her 200 y breast record is really intriguing for her next swims in the big pool.
Worrell showed great speed (impressive her fly leg in the 200 medley relay), but LCM fly races are pretty different from SCY ones and in 200 y fly she was in trouble in the back-half.
We’ll see how she will perform at French trials in a fortnight, but above all at Omaha.
Cynthia, Lilly King has a 100 breast PB of 1.06.43 and a 200 breast PB of 2.24.47 in long course.
So we already know she can, unlike many other college swimmers, swim very fast in the big pool.
Based on her huge progression since she trains at Indiana, I expect big time drops in the coming months.
Don’t be surprised if she goes 1.04 high and 2.21 next summer.
If she can manage well her taper to peak in Rio, I think she can play the 100 breast gold against Meilutyte and Meili.
And a final in the 200 is a realistic goal.
Ayyo good call Bo
Hope she can do it in meters, yeah.