Gold medal swimmer gives clinic and shares advice in Sitka

Tokyo Summer Olympics swim team gold medalist Lydia Jacoby, a 17-year-old Seward High School senior, was in Sitka last month, sharing stories, offering advice - and talking about her goggles.

She also talked of criticism directed at her on social media and mental health.

"During the mixed-medley (relay) my goggles fell off my face and were in my mouth," she said. "I couldn't breathe for the whole race, and that's something that you think once you get to the Olympics you'll kind of be past that, but apparently not."

Despite struggling to breathe or see, Jacoby swam her second-fastest 100-meter breaststroke ever in that relay.

"Although I feel like we (Team USA) didn't do as well as we hoped to, we came out fifth in the world and it was an incredible experience, one that I never want to have again, but one that I'm glad that I did have," she said.

Following the event, Jacoby faced vitriol online.

"The hardest part was after that mixed medley, when my goggles fell off, I made the classic rookie mistake of reading all the media, reading all the comments, and people were not supportive of our relay. That was actually the first relay in Olympic history where Team USA hadn't made the podium, so people were not very kind," she said.

The July 2021 Olympic champ offered the assembled students advice on dealing with stress.

"Lists are really good. If I'm feeling really stressed out or really overwhelmed. I have a note on my phone and I'll just sit in a corner when I'm so overwhelmed and write down everything I feel overwhelmed about, everything I feel negative about and get it all out," she said.

"It can be really, really long and then it's all out and you can feel better. I think that's really helpful to me, especially if you don't want to talk to anyone about it," the medalist said.

"A lot of athletes really struggle when they finish their sport, retire from their sport, moving into a normal life. So I think that's definitely an important thing to keep balanced. I just had a film-photography show in Seward last week," she said on the Jan. 28 events in Sitka.

Jacoby said her friends in Seward "just think of me as a normal person, and they still do today."

Competing with the world's fastest swimmers at the Olympics last summer, Jacoby won gold in the 100-meter breaststroke and took silver as a member of the 4-by-100 medley relay.

She recalled that moment on July 27 when she touched the wall at the end of the 100-meter breaststroke and saw the names go up on the board.

"It was crazy. It's definitely nothing that you can really put into words, just looking up there and seeing number one and having the world record holder and Olympic record holder coming over and congratulating you and then going to those press conferences," Jacoby remembered.

A video that later went viral online combined footage of Jacoby pulling ahead in the final moments of the race and the ecstatic reaction of her family and fans in Seward as they watched the race on TV.

"I now have a platform that I can share what I believe in and what I stand for, that kind of thing, and then use that to inspire kids," she said in an interview after a presentation at Sitka's Performing Arts Center.

Earlier in the day she suited up and held a clinic and workshop for young swimmers at the Mt. Edgecumbe Aquatic Center.

"I've just kind of recently started doing swim clinics," she said. "I did one in Kansas City, I did a small one in Budapest, Hungary, so this is actually my third one," she said.

"I'm excited to give back to Alaska swimming a little bit. They've always done so much for me, so to be able to inspire some of these younger swimmers, it's been great to be here," she said.

Jacoby spoke about the challenges of training after the pandemic shutdowns. After COVID pushed the Tokyo Olympics from 2020 to 2021 and stymied her ability to swim in her hometown, she stayed in shape through a variety of activities.

"I was skiing, running with ice cleats, I had a little gym set up in my garage that my dad and my coach helped me set up and so it was tough but we just kept training. We weren't sure if the Olympics were going to go on," she told the audience.

In Sitka for the weekend to swim in the Alaska Senior Championship meet, Jacoby said she was "just looking forward to having some fun and seeing my friends here in Alaska I've been swimming with."

She hasn't been to Sitka since she was very young, when her parents would sail across the Gulf of Alaska from Seward to Southeast. "We used to sail over here when I was really little, like 3, 4, so this is my first time being back for a long time."

This fall, she will attend the University of Texas at Austin, and compete with their swim team.

Her new athletic focus is the Paris Olympics, only two years away.