Latest news with #breaststroke
ABC News
18 minutes ago
- Sport
- ABC News
Teenager Sienna Toohey shines at the Australian Swimming Trials with 100m breaststroke final win
Australian swimming has a new young star: Sienna Toohey. The 16-year-old booked her ticket to the World Championships in Singapore next month by beating Australia's best women in the 100m breaststroke final at the Australian Swimming Trials in Adelaide. Her time of 1:06.55 smashed her personal best. Toohey broke down immediately after the race in an interview. "I was just so nervous, but I'm just so happy that I've done it now," she said. "It's a lot. "I've been doing very hard training — more than I've ever done before so I'm very happy that it's paid off." Toohey said she had the toughest week of training in her life earlier in the year with the national squad. "It (winning) was definitely a relief if anything because spending time away from family for that long, it's the hardest it's ever been for me," she said. "Because I love my dad and my brother so much, it was very hard not having them while I was doing that tough training." The upside was training alongside her idols. "These were people I was watching two years ago saying I want to be just like them, so it was very surreal being in a hotel room with them, eating lunch and dinner," she said. In April, Toohey broke breaststroke legend Hayley Lewis's record for 16-year-old girls. "After nationals this year, she sent me a video the night after I broke her 100 record, just congratulating me," she said. "It meant a lot. Just getting something personalised from her. And her just reaching out and telling me to keep going and that things can happen when you're a young age. It was definitely inspiring." Toohey said she only started swimming because she wanted to play water polo. "But my parents told me I couldn't do water polo if I didn't swim," she said. "It got to the point where I had to choose swimming or water polo, obviously I chose swimming, it was the right choice." In second place was Ella Ramsay who will add the 100m to her Singapore dance card after already qualifying for the 200m individual medley on the first night of the trials. She was asked what advice she has for Toohey. "To keep following your dreams I'd say," Ramsay said. "Just to see the pure emotion and relief Sienna had after her race, I definitely can relate to that because I had that this time last year when I made the Olympic team." Meanwhile, multiple Olympic champion Kaylee McKeown is winning, but struggling. After she was disqualified, then reinstated, on day one of the trials, she followed up with a win in the 100m backstroke, but said she was far from happy. "Yesterday was yesterday, today is today, can't really dwell on the past, that's the sport," she said. "This week's just not my week, but I've gotta do my job and make my team." She said she wasn't satisfied with her winning time of 57.71 — 0.38seconds outside her personal best which was the previous world record. Even so, it's the third fastest time of the year, behind her own win in the national championships earlier in April, and world record holder, Regan Smith in May. "I mean it's pretty simple you want to swim fast," she said. "You just want to go out hard and come back hard and hope for a good time on the wall and it just wasn't there tonight." On Monday, Alexandria Perkins won the women's 100m butterfly final and on Tuesday she beat her own personal best in the heats of the women's 50m butterfly in the morning, setting an all comers record before beating it again, winning the night's final. "I feel like I've held myself to a really high standard and I know the way I train so I can take confidence from that," she said. "I feel like it's maybe taken a few years to translate the way I'm training to the way I'm racing. So, I'm finally feeling I'm achieving that. "It's very exciting, it's also scary because you don't know when it's going to stop. "You can't put a limit on it, you never really know." In Singapore, she will come up against US 100m butterfly world record holder, Gretchen Walsh, after coming third against her in the 50m and 100m butterfly finals at the World Short Course Championships in Budapest last year. "You don't want to be next to her because you can get stuck in her wash a bit because she's just so damned fast," she said. "But I think it's incredible what she's doing for the sport, but hopefully she'll drag all the flyers along with her." Paralympic star Alexa Leary blitzed her field, coming within .01 seconds of her world record in the S950m freestyle final, but said she was glad she didn't break it. "The big show and the big game is Singapore. For this one I was just really focused on what my coach was focused on with all my skills and drills," she said. "I'm strong in the mental game so I've got this in Singapore, I've got it." In other results, Edward Sommerville smashed his personal best by over two-and-a-half seconds winning the men's 200m freestyle final in a time of 1:44.93 — comfortably under the World Championships qualifying time. Sam Short came second to back up his win in the 400m on night one. Olympic veteran Matthew Temple won the men's 100m butterfly final to qualify for Singapore alongside Jesse Coleman in second place.
Yahoo
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
American swimming star Lilly King announces farewell season, final US competition
FILE - Lilly King, of the United States, waves ahead of the women's 100-meter breaststroke final at the 2024 Summer Olympics, July 29, 2024, in Nanterre, France. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue, File) FILE - Lilly King, of the United States, competes in the women's 100-meter breaststroke semifinal at the 2024 Summer Olympics, July 28, 2024, in Nanterre, France. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, File) FILE - Lilly King, of the United States, competes in the women's 100-meter breaststroke semifinal at the 2024 Summer Olympics, July 28, 2024, in Nanterre, France. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, File) FILE - Lilly King, of the United States, waves ahead of the women's 100-meter breaststroke final at the 2024 Summer Olympics, July 29, 2024, in Nanterre, France. (AP Photo/Bernat Armangue, File) FILE - Lilly King, of the United States, competes in the women's 100-meter breaststroke semifinal at the 2024 Summer Olympics, July 28, 2024, in Nanterre, France. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, File) American three-time Olympic swimming star Lilly King has announced the upcoming Toyota National Championships in Indianapolis will be her final meet on U.S. soil as she prepares to call it a career at the conclusion of the 2025 season. The meet will run Tuesday through Saturday. A longtime breaststroke stalwart, King announced her plans Saturday on Instagram and said swimming her final race in the U.S. in her home state and a pool she's known since her youth 'has always been important to me.' Advertisement 'Well, folks, my time has come. This will be my final season competing," she wrote. "I'm fortunate heading into retirement being able to say I have accomplished everything I have ever wanted in this sport. I feel fulfilled." The 28-year-old King won a gold medal in the 100-meter breaststroke at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games and also captured Olympic titles on relays in Rio and at her final Olympics last year in Paris. The U.S. women's 4x100 medley relay set a world record in 3:49.63. Regan Smith, Gretchen Walsh and Torri Huske were her teammates in the Americans' victory over defending Olympic champion Australia. 'Just an awesome way to cap off the meet,' King said afterward. Advertisement At the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics, King earned silver medals in the 200 breaststroke and 4x100 medley relay and a bronze in the 100 breast. She narrowly missed the medal stand in the 100 breast in Paris, with one-hundredth of a second separating bronze medalist Mona McSharry of Ireland and the fourth-place tie between King and Italy's Benedetta Pilato in 1:05.60. For King, being home in Indiana next week will mean so much. It was also in Indianapolis last June during the U.S. Olympic swimming trials that boyfriend and former Indiana University swimmer James Wells proposed to her just off the pool deck — and she said yes. Advertisement 'I have been racing in the IU Natatorium since I was 10 years old," she wrote. "From state meets, to NCAAs, Nationals, and anything in between, this pool has been my home. I didn't quite make it 20 years (only 18) of racing in Indy, but this is as close as I'm gonna get! I look forward to racing in front of a home crowd one last time." ___ AP Summer Olympics:
Yahoo
31-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
3-time Olympic gold medalist Lilly King announces retirement after 2025 season
Decorated American swimmer and breaststroke specialist Lilly King is stepping away from competition after the 2025 Toyota National Championships in June. On Saturday, King took to Instagram to announce that this season he will be her swan song after initially naming the 2024 Summer Olympics as her last ride. Advertisement 'Well folks, my time has come,' she captioned a series of pictures from her career. 'This will be my final season competing. I'm fortunate heading into retirement being able to say I have accomplished everything I have ever wanted in this sport. I feel fulfilled. 'That being said, it has always been important to me that my last meet in the US be at the pool that started it all. I have been racing in the IU Natatorium since I was 10 years old,' King continued. 'From state meets, to NCAAs, Nationals, and anything in between, this pool has been my home.' 'I didn't quite make it 20 years (only 18) of racing in Indy, but this is as close as I'm gonna get! I look forward to racing in front of a home crowd one last time. See you in Indy!' Advertisement The Evansville, Indiana native will swim her final meet in her home state as the top seed in the 100-yard breaststroke and No. 2 seed in the 50-yard breaststroke. Despite winning the event at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, King will not be competing in the 200-yard breaststroke come June. She also finished eighth in the event in 2024 at the Paris Olympics. King represented the the U.S. in three Olympic Games, winning gold in the women's 100 breaststroke and the 4×100 medley relay in 2016. It was that 100 breaststroke medal that made King a breakthrough star in Rio, as she famously called out Russia's Yuliya Yefimova over past failed doping tests, then beat her in the pool. In 2020, King bagged silver in the 200-yard breaststroke, silver in the women's 4×100 medley relay and bronze in the 100-yard breaststroke. She wrapped up her Olympic career finishing 4th in the 100 breast in Paris after missing the bronze medal by 0.01 seconds. King also swam in a world record performance (3:49.63) in the women's 4×100 medley relay for the Americans. The record-breaking performance capped her final Olympic effort in with gold. Advertisement Before turning pro in 2019, King competed at Indiana. As a freshman, she won the NCAA title in the 100-yard breaststroke and 200-yard breaststroke for the Hoosiers. King's last meet will be held at the Indiana University Natatorium from June 3-7.
