Two-time Olympic gold medalist Lilly King had some interesting minutes at the Olympic trials on Thursday.
King had already qualified for his third Games with a first-place finish in the 100-meter breaststroke on Monday, but he had a chance to make history with the 200-meter dash. A first or second place finish would have made King the first American to qualify for both races in three consecutive Olympic Games.
The king did it. Barely.
She entered the final length clearly behind Alex Walsh, but managed to close the gap in the final meters to edge the 22-year-old by 0.45 seconds. Both finished well behind first-place finisher Kate Douglass, who won the event at the last two world championships.
Douglass was 0.16 seconds away from breaking his own American record.
Clearly, King left the pool knowing he had work to do if he wanted to match or better his 200m silver medal in Tokyo.
Then her boyfriend James Wells gave her a lot more to think about as she walked away, when he proposed to her. King, who apparently received some sort of warning when he was told to let down her hair, instantly said yes.
Wells’ proposal:
“Just watching you grow up has been incredible and I don’t regret for a minute leaving my job and moving across the country to live together. It’s been amazing and I’m so excited to see where this goes. So, darling, I was wondering : Lilly Camille King, will you marry me?
One could imagine that King and Wells will wait until after Paris to start planning the wedding.
King gained fame at the 2016 Games when she beat Russia’s Yuliya Yefimova, who had previously been suspended for doping, in the 100-meter breaststroke. She surprisingly fell short of gold in Tokyo, where she took silver in the 200 meters and the 4×100 meters medley relay, plus a bronze in the 100 meters behind fellow American Lydia Jacoby.
Returning to the top in Paris would be quite a story, but King is already assured that he will experience a very special moment in 2024.