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Lilly King Admits 200 Breast DQ Call Was Correct: ‘I Definitely Did It’

2019 FINA WORLD AQUATICS CHAMPIONSHIPS

Following a drawn-out saga to determine if she touched did indeed do a non-simultaneous touch on the first wall of her Worlds 200 breast prelims swim, outspoken Olympian Lilly King admitted Friday after seeing video that the disqualification call was correct.

“They made the right call,” King said, according to the Associated Press. “When you saw it in super slo-mo and super zoom, I definitely did it.”

It took about 30 minutes after her race for USA Swimming to find out and announce what King had been called for. The organization filed a protest, which they lost, then took it to FINA’s Jury of Appeal, which also upheld the initial call.

Video review is in use at this meet (only to overturn calls, not to make new ones), and it’s extremely rare for the Jury to overturn a call when that is the case.

“I really appreciate everyone’s effort to try to get it overturned, but it was so over the top,” King added. “I think it would have been very difficult to see with the human eye personally, but I think the official was standing at just the right angle and she got me… The officials are there to do their job and that’s what they did.”

It wouldn’t be Lilly King without a hint of controversy in her response, however. Earlier in the meet, she criticized FINA over its handling of the Sun Yang situation, and supported Mack Horton in his podium protest of the Chinese star.

“I don’t think anyone at FINA is going to stand up for the athletes, so the athletes have to stand up for themselves,” she said at the time.

Thus, she didn’t shut down the conspiracy theory that has briefly circulated – without logical base – that FINA could have been retaliating against her.

“Do I think maybe something I had said about FINA earlier maybe came back to haunt me in the jury? Yeah, probably,” King said, “but I’m still going to stand up for what I believe in and in the end the official made the right call.”

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Sang Hwa Lee
5 years ago

3 weeks ago, GoSwim published a warning video about this open turn.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tQRJGZehtoE

Wondering
5 years ago

Now it is Yulia’s turn to come out and admit she did PEDs

swim4fun
5 years ago

There is a video from NBC, despite being slow motion, it was obvious:
https://deadspin.com/swimming-controversy-lasts-about-a-day-before-lilly-kin-1836717708

Northern Swimparent
Reply to  swim4fun
5 years ago

Many of these cameras can film at 25,000 frames a second. It will be obvious that the hands did not touch simultaneously from one frame to the next one that is 4 one hundred thousandths of a second later.

The standard of review should be whether the initial call was unreasonable when the video is replayed at full speed.

USGrant
5 years ago

Yeah, just get that competitive edge or advantage. Parents, she should be DQed all her career and your kids were robbed of the medals.

Northern Swimparent
5 years ago

As a practical matter it is simply not possible to touch both hands at the exact same time. Whether there is a thousandth or a millionth of a second separating the touches.

The standard that is being applied is whether or not the turn judge can perceive the hands not touching simultaneously. Therefore, it is inappropriate to use super slowmo to review.

NoFlyKick
Reply to  Northern Swimparent
5 years ago

Voice of reason.

Lpman
5 years ago

I feel this admission is coming from somewhere else. Even if she knew she did it, why say anything at all? Now officials will be watching her even closer.

Doesn’t make sense

Admin
Reply to  Lpman
5 years ago

Doesn’t make sense? I get what you’re saying, someone like Phelps or Dressel probably wouldn’t go there, Lilly has never been one to keep her opinions to herself.

As a member of the media, I can appreciate her approach 🙂

Lpman
Reply to  Braden Keith
5 years ago

Respectfully disagree. Its like announcing to everyone that you do an extra dolphin kick at the end of a race, or you purposely go 15+ meters underwater. All I’m saying is, if you get dqed, and you know why you did, then take the dq quietly. Why intentionally bring more attention (albeit from officials, underwater cameras, coaches) to something that is dq worthy?

Its like getting pulled over by a cop and saying “Hey, not only was I just speeding, but I speed at this same spot, every time, every day”

Admin
Reply to  Lpman
5 years ago

You claimed that it doesn’t make sense for Lilly to say this, and used that to justify the idea that there’s some puppetmaster making her say these things. What I’m saying is that it makes absolute sense that Lilly would say this, because of her personality and historical honesty, and so I don’t see a puppetmaster as the most likely outcome. Then you’ve disagreed with “well most people wouldn’t do this.” But we’re not talking about most people – we’re talking about Lilly King, and it does align with that which we know about Lilly that she would admit to it of her own volition. Was your expectation for her to lie when asked a question about whether she thinks… Read more »

Lpman
Reply to  Braden Keith
5 years ago

My expectation was for her to say nothing.

Spectatorn
Reply to  Lpman
5 years ago

but even after admitted doing an extra dolphin kick during breast stroke pull out, future swims of the same swimmer still not called for dq at all… exhibit #1 Cameron van der Burgh 2012 Olympic 100m Breaststroke.

Lpman
Reply to  Spectatorn
5 years ago

Look at the criticism her teammate Cody Miller gets for alleged dolphin kicks and he never even admitted to doing it. I’m just wondering why give people any kind of excuse for criticism. I get it, King marches to the beat of her own drum. Cool. I personally just don’t understand her actions.

USGrant
Reply to  Lpman
5 years ago

She is not being honest. At this level, it is all about muscle memory. She still complained about others.

Anonymous
Reply to  Lpman
5 years ago

Officials will be watching everyone more closely. I am quite certain I have let nonsimultaneous pass before. I have learned a lot from this.

USGrant
5 years ago

Just shut up and swim.

Sccoach
5 years ago

If they are able to bust these swimmers on super hard to catch things like this then why can’t they bust those that do the multiple dolphin kicks???

Cdev
Reply to  Sccoach
5 years ago

It’s not hard to catch it’s easy to see if you are standing there!

About Torrey Hart

Torrey Hart

Torrey is from Oakland, CA, and majored in media studies and American studies at Claremont McKenna College, where she swam distance freestyle for the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps team. Outside of SwimSwam, she has bylines at Sports Illustrated, Yahoo Sports, SB Nation, and The Student Life newspaper.

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