Jun. 17—Seward’s Lydia Jacoby narrowly missed an opportunity to defend her Olympic title in the 100-meter breaststroke, finishing third Monday in the finals of the U.S. Olympic Trials in Indianapolis.
Jacoby, 20, needed to finish first or second in the finals to automatically qualify for the Olympics, where she won the 100-meter breaststroke gold medal at the 2020 Tokyo Summer Games.
Lilly King, the U.S. and world record holder, won Monday’s 100-meter final in a time of 1 minute, 5.43 seconds.
Jacoby’s time of 1:06.37 was just 27 hundredths of a second behind Emma Weber (1:06.10), who will head to Paris next month as the second U.S. qualifier in the event.
Although the 100-meter race is Jacoby’s strongest event, she will have another opportunity to qualify in the 200-meter breaststroke. Jacoby has the third-highest seed time entering the Trials behind King and Kate Douglass.
