Seward’s Lydia Jacoby swam her way onto the podium and into an unofficial U.S. record book Saturday at a FINA World Cup swim meet in Berlin.
Jacoby, a 17-year-old who won gold and silver medals at the Tokyo Olympics, placed third in the women’s 100-meter breaststroke with a time that is believed to be a junior national short-course record.
Jacoby finished in 1 minute, 5.20 seconds. Anastasia Gorbenko, an 18-year-old from Israel, won in 1:04.44, and 14-year-old Eneli Jefimova of Estonia was second in 1:04.95.
Jacoby was well off the pace that earned her the gold medal in the 100-meter breaststroke at the Olympics, where races are held in 50-meter pools.
World Cup races like the ones in Berlin are held in 25-meter pools, which produce much faster times than 50-meter pools. Jacoby’s short-course time from Saturday converts to a 1:07.20 long-course time, which is much slower than her 1:04.95 at the Olympics.
The record is unofficial because the rankings for short-course races measured in meters are maintained by swimswam.com rather than USA Swimming, which only keeps short-course records for races measured in yards.
According to swimswam.com, Jacoby’s time on Saturday was more than a second faster than the previous unofficial record — Lilly King’s 1:06.32 posted in 2014.
The race was the second in two days for Jacoby, who placed fifth in Friday’s 200-meter breaststroke.
The meet marked her return to the international stage after she took the swimming world by storm in Tokyo. Jacoby will remain in Europe for another FINA meet next week in Budapest.