	products recent interviews FastScripts archive about ASAP Sports

Our Clients:

Browse by Sport

Find us on

Subscribe to RSS

Click to go to
Asaptext.com

View our
e-Brochure

USA SWIMMING 2018 PHILLIPS 66 NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS

July 24, 2018

Lilly King

Irvine, California

THE MODERATOR: We're joined by Olympic champion, world-record holder Lilly King. Lilly, tell us how training has been going, how you've been able to transition from another great college season into the long-course season up to this point.

LILLY KING: Training has been good so far. It's been a little rough the last couple of weeks because I haven't been tapering as much as the rest of the team. I've been swimming mostly with the Junior National swimmers that are incoming freshmen. Feeling pretty good in the water today and looking forward to a good meet.

Q. Last time I saw you was at the Rio Olympics, incredible high. You've backed it up since. What's it like coming back from that experience, coming back to real life?
LILLY KING: It was a lot of emotions definitely coming back. Obviously super excited to come back home and kind of, like, living this sweet life. On the other hand, you have to come back, start training, getting back in the groove. In that sense it was a little bit harder, but I think we're, like, it's been like almost two years now, so starting to get back to normal.

Q. Just to give people a sense who may not be completely familiar with the competitive swimming, where are you at right now. What's the focus on goals at this point in the process?
LILLY KING: For me, at this meet, just kind of looking to put up some good times, hopefully faster than I was at World Championship Trials last year. And then just kind of trying to get the best time at Pan Pacs. That's kind of where I am, looking forward to Tokyo. I've put Rio behind me and obviously I still like to talk about it. But, yeah, kind of putting that behind me, trying to look forward.

Q. One of the things that the general public likes is a storyline. Definitely had one in Rio -- the rivalry, representing towards it and very much enjoy it. When you look back on that part of it what are your favorite memories from that period of time?
LILLY KING: I don't really -- I think mostly my favorite memories from that is just hanging out with the team, getting to know all of my national team members. Those are the memories that I'm going to remember. Obviously I went and I won a gold medal and that was great and all. But definitely going to remember the people and the stories a lot more than what, like, happened to me personally.

Q. You're quite right in taking a strong stance against doping. A different kind of situation yesterday with Ryan (Lochte) getting banned for, I guess doping-related offense. What are your thoughts on that? You've spoken out strongly about this issue. How did what happened yesterday affect you? What are your thoughts about it?
LILLY KING: Just personal thoughts. I really -- it's really hard to see that happen to a friend and a teammate and someone that you've looked up to. But then, again, you can't break the rules like that. So it's obviously hard to see that happen to Ryan. But you have to follow the laws and I appreciate that FINA and WADA and USADA and all the doping agencies are cracking down on that now because it's something that needs to happen. So not something you want to see happen to a friend and a teammate.

Q. I'm curious if you were aware of that rule, the IV rule, before yesterday?
LILLY KING: I'm not really -- I don't personally take IV drips. Not really my thing. But as far as I read. In the articles that I read about it, the substances he was taking, from my knowledge, were legal. But you need a therapeutic exemption to be able to take those or take the IV drip or something like that. Obviously, like, I don't take any supplements and I don't plan on taking supplements. So, not something that is I guess in the back of my mind. But I still, if I were to do that I would guess I would check it out and see if I needed a TUE for that.

Q. You mentioned earlier not being as tapered as some of your training partners. How tapered are you for this meet compared to, I guess, nationals last year and Olympic Trials and what's your reasoning behind it?
LILLY KING: I don't even remember Olympic Trials, it was so long ago. And then last year I was probably a little bit more tapered for nationals than I am this year. I was probably doing around 10 to 12K last week. Then I dropped off this week to more of a three-day drop going into the meet. So I think this is the least tapered I've been going into a nationals. But kind of the thinking behind that, it's a lot harder to come back from -- or at least do a double taper, I swim a lot better on just a single taper. Our focus was on Pan Pacs and not this meet. That was mine and my coach's thought process on that.

Q. When you're not on that taper as well as you would like to be, what does that feel like? What does that mean for you in the water?
LILLY KING: It depends. Sometimes at practice I hate it because I see my teammates get out of the water half an hour before I do. And I'm not going to lie, I was kind of miserable the last couple of weeks.

But then again when you put up a good swim when you're not on taper yet, it's really good for your confidence, I think. I've done that a couple times before. And I know that I'm going to swim faster in the weeks to come. So, I think it's a really good measure yourself and where you're going to be when you're on your full taper, I guess.

Q. You mentioned that you're swimming with the Junior National kids. What's that like compared to your normal training partners.
LILLY KING: It's been fine. Our Junior National kids are just our incoming freshmen, so it gives me a chance to get to know them better and they're really fast. I'm not used to our incoming freshmen being that fast. They've been whipping my butt the last couple weeks. It's been fun to get to know the younger kids on the team.

Q. How is your role different now, post Rio, when you go to Indiana and you swim with incoming freshmen? Those kids, those athletes, I'm guessing, look at you a lot different than swimmers looked at you three years ago. How is that different?
LILLY KING: Yeah, I think when I came in as a freshman, I was just so happy to be there. And I was the kid who would literally sprint everything at practice and didn't care.

But as I've gotten older I realize my body can't really handle that. I see the freshmen doing that now and it makes me excited for them in the future because that's exactly how I was like as a freshman.

As far as my role, I like being looked up to and being an example for those kids. And I have a lot of stories to share and a lot of experiences that I can kind of give to them and just kind of lead the way. And I like that. I enjoy that.

Q. Not to harp on yesterday's news, but given what you said in Rio, do you consider what happened to Ryan in the same level as what happened to Yulia (Efimova)? And would you agree with him coming back to competition?
LILLY KING: I don't really know. I'm not exactly in charge of handing out the sentences. But I'm not going to lie, I'm not really that knowledgeable on substances and kind of what they do to the body just because I don't take them and I'm not going to. And it's just not something I think about that much. But as far as them banning him, I do think if you do something wrong you should serve time and you should be punished. So, again, it's hard to see that happen to a friend but I don't really see anything wrong with what happened yesterday.

THE MODERATOR: Thank you.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297