In a passing of the torch, Olympic 200m breaststroke champion Kate Douglass overtook Lilly King, the 100m breast world record holder, in the 100m event in King’s final career domestic race at the Toyota U.S. Championships on Friday.
Douglass clocked a personal best 1:05.79 to edge King by 23 hundredths of a second at the IU Natatorium in Indianapolis. The Evansville native King has been racing at the venue since she was 10 years old.
“I’ve gotten second place a lot in this pool, so kind of poetic to end it this way,” King, a 28-year-old who announced Saturday that she will retire after this season, said on Peacock. “I told Kate in December, ‘All right, I’m passing it off to you after this.’”
Both Douglass and King made the team for the World Championships in July and August in Singapore, which will be King’s last major international meet.
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“Lilly’s been just a huge mentor and teammate for me on Team USA,” said Douglass, who raced the 100m breast at a trials meet for the first time since 2018. “She’s not swimming the 200m breast anymore, so I had to have one more international race with her.”
King earned a medal at a major international meet every year (save 2020) since her breakout 2016, when she won Olympic 100m breast gold after her freshman season at Indiana University.
“Lilly’s always been a gunslinger, that’s how she came into this sport, and that’s how I expect her to go out of this sport,” said Ray Looze, King’s coach since she was a Hoosier. “She’s courageous. She’s the bravest person I’ve ever met.”
Gabrielle Rose, 47, finished seventh in the 100m breast in a time that would have won the bronze medal at her first Olympics in 1996. No other woman at these nationals was alive when Rose made her Olympic debut.
Like King, the Natatorium is special for Rose. She made the Olympic team there in 2000.
Also Friday, Katie Ledecky added a 400m freestyle title to her 800m free crown from Tuesday. She hasn’t lost to an American in a 400m free since placing third at the 2012 Olympic Trials at age 15.
Rising Texas junior Rex Maurer won the men’s 400m free in 3:43.33 — the fastest time ever in a U.S. pool — to become the third-fastest American in history. Maurer’s mom, Lea, won relay gold and 100m backstroke bronze at the 1992 Barcelona Games.
Luka Mijatovic, 16, finished second, which will likely be enough to make the world championships team once the meet ends Saturday. Mijatovic would be the youngest U.S. man to swim at worlds since Michael Phelps in 2001.
World record holder Regan Smith won the 100m backstroke after placing second in the 50m and 200m distances. She can swim all three backstrokes, plus the 200m butterfly, at worlds.
Campbell McKean, 18, took the men’s 100m breast by lowering his personal best from 1:00.40 to 58.96 on Friday, one year after placing 21st at the Olympic Trials. The time would have won gold in Paris.
On Thursday, McKean won the 50m breast by lowering his personal best from 27.40 to 26.90 between prelims and the final.
The Toyota U.S. Championships end Saturday with finals at 7 p.m. ET, live on Peacock.
Correction: An earlier version of this post incorrectly identified Rex Maurer as a rising Stanford junior. He transferred to Texas.
