Lilly King, Ryan Murphy and the men's 4x200 freestyle team have claimed three more gold medals for the United States at the world swimming championships. King atoned for missing out on the podium in the 100 breaststroke by winning the 200 breaststroke final for the first time.
Murphy got the Americans' second gold of the evening in the men's 200 backstroke for his first gold medal in an individual event at the worlds. Drew Kibler, Carson Foster, Trenton Julian and Kieran Smith then won the relay final to make up for the American team's failure to finish among the medals at the same event at the Olympics last year. Australian swimmers have claimed the other two golds on offer.
“Any time I have a bad swim, I feel like I got a lot of haters out there. And just to be able to prove them wrong, gets me going,” King said.
“It’s really nice to be able to kind of complete the set and I guess I’m a decent swimmer now,” King joked of her 10 medals — nine of them gold — from the worlds. Only Caeleb Dressel, with 15, has claimed more since 2017.
“I think back to 2014, I was the youngest guy in the team and I had some really good people that were leading us back then. And so it’s cool to think that I’m in a position to mentor the young guys now,” Murphy said. “We’ve got an incredible legacy at USA Swimming. It’s cool to try to pay that forward.”
