Lydia Jacoby
After winning Olympic gold and silver medals at the Summer Games in Tokyo, Lydia Jacoby of Seward was determined to come home and have a normal senior year.
Well, normalish.
Returning to normalcy after taking the swimming world by storm has been difficult given her new-found fame, but the 17-year-old has managed to get back into a comfortable routine. Like competing for her hometown Seahawks.
“It’s been great coming back to my roots and doing the high school swim season,” Jacoby said in a phone interview.
“It’s really been good being in Seward and having such a small class. Everybody has known me since we were children and so I feel like their perception of me hasn’t really changed. Of course, they are proud of me, but they’ve always known me as just Lydia.”
It won’t be just Jacoby representing Seward at this week’s ASAA state championships at Bartlett High in Anchorage as the Seahawks qualified a total of five swimmers. Spectators inside Bartlett’s aquatic center will be limited due to COVID protocols, but there is a live streaming link for fans to watch.
History could be made each time Jacoby gets in the water.
She will compete in her signature event, the 100-yard breaststroke, as well as the 200 individual medley. Her top-ranked qualifying times are more than three seconds faster than the No. 2 qualifier in both events.
Having an Olympic champion compete against high school kids almost doesn’t seem fair, but Jacoby’s presence at the state meet is a historically cool, OMG moment that should be cherished and celebrated.
“This might be the greatest encore presentation ever for an Alaskan athlete,” former longtime Anchorage Daily News sports editor Beth Bragg told me.
The Seward Seahawks / Photo by Sarah Spanos
From the Olympics to the Olympic-sized pool at Bartlett, Jacoby’s journey has come full circle at the state meet.
This is where she won her first state title in 2018 and set a state record in 2019. Now she’s back in 2021, eager to make another splash.
“It’s definitely a big moment, my last high school meet,” she said. “It does mean a lot to me. It’s very important.”
In the breaststroke, Jacoby is a two-time state champion after winning titles as a freshman and sophomore. She didn’t compete as a junior because she wanted to focus on the Olympic Trials.
The breaststroke is her bread and butter, the event that made her famous. Even before the Olympics, though, she was untouchable in Alaska. Jacoby owns the four fastest breaststroke times in the state meet’s 45-year history, including a record clip of 1:00.61 in 2019.
“I like big meets when there are high stakes,” she said. “I definitely do my best in high-pressure situations.”
Her qualifying time this year of 1:00.22 puts her on pace to break her own state record, which can only be set at the state-championship meet.
Jacoby’s qualifying time is about 3½ seconds faster than No. 2 qualifier Jasmine Anderson of Colony. Three seconds in a pool is like three touchdowns on a football field.
“Being from Alaska and generally not having a ton of people to race, I’ve kind of trained myself to race myself,” Jacoby said.
She’s confident, not cocky. Even though she’s an Olympic champion she doesn’t take her opponents for granted, showing respect whether they are from South Africa or South Anchorage.
“There is a lot of competition in Alaska for me,” she said. “Not so much in the breaststroke but for IM and some of my other events for sure.”
In the 200 IM, Jacoby has one state title from her freshman year. She has posted this year’s fastest qualifying time of 2:07.88, which would rank No. 10 in state meet history. Kodiak’s Tahna Lindquist set the 200 IM state record of 2:03.61 in 2014.
“I’m gonna finish strong,” Jacoby said.
Seward coach Solomon D’Amico credits his star swimmer for always staying hungry. Complacency isn’t in her DNA.
“Every day we’re trying to accomplish something new and get better,” D’Amico said. “Just because we have reached the mountain top, we still have a lot of things we’re looking at improving and we’re really excited about that.”
With the state meet on the horizon, Jacoby’s championship mindset is cranked all the way up. She is just as driven to win a state title now as she was before the Olympics.
“I would say it’s more important than ever,” Jacoby said. “I feel like there is a lot more pressure to come out on top.”
Expectations for excellence are through the roof after her two-medal haul that saw her became the first Alaskan to swim at the Olympics and the third Alaskan to win two Olympic medals at the Summer Games, but the first to do in the same year.
She also became Alaska’s youngest Olympic medalist, which has already stimulated swimmers from Alaska.
Take former Chugiak High swimmer Izzy Powers, who returned to collegiate swimming this year after taking a year off.
“I think we are all a little inspired by Lydia right now,” said Powers, now at NCAA Division II Colorado Mesa University.
Jacoby’s historic performance at the Olympics changed the landscape of Alaska sports, but her Olympic success didn’t change her. She would rather talk about making music than making history. She keeps her medals hidden away in a drawer, she said, and doesn’t show them off unless prompted by family and friends.
“She’s never been comfortable with people elevating her,” D’Amico said.
Jacoby has kept it real even after making her dreams come true.
“So much of that is due to her upbringing,” D’Amico said. “Her parents (Leslie and Richard Jacoby) are like the ideal scenario from a coach’s perspective. They are supportive without ever being overbearing or applying too much pressure.”
Jacoby is probably the most popular Alaska athlete right now. She got a huge homecoming when he arrived at the airport in Anchorage from the Olympics and her phone hasn’t stopped ringing from requests from national media.
“It can definitely be a little hard sometimes, you know, having (the Olympics) be the only thing people know about me and having them think that they know everything about me,” she said.
Her escape is the pool. And her release is getting back to normal with the Seward swim team.
“It was really fun coming off the Olympics and being able to hop right back with some of my best friends and people that I really wanted to be around all the time,” Jacoby said. “It’s definitely nice to be home.”