American three-time Olympic swimming star and world record holder Lilly King has announced the upcoming Toyota National Championships in Indianapolis will be her final meet on US soil as she prepares to call it a career at the conclusion of the 2025 season.
The meet will run Tuesday through Saturday. A longtime breaststroke stalwart, King announced her plans Saturday on Instagram and said swimming her final race in the US in her home state and a pool she’s known since her youth “has always been important to me”.
“Well, folks, my time has come. This will be my final season competing,” she wrote. “I’m fortunate heading into retirement being able to say I have accomplished everything I have ever wanted in this sport. I feel fulfilled.”
Allow Instagram content?
This article includes content provided by Instagram. We ask for your permission before anything is loaded, as they may be using cookies and other technologies. To view this content, click ‘Allow and continue’.
The 28-year-old King holds the world record in the 100m breaststroke with a time of 1:04.13, set at the 2017 world championships. She won an Olympic gold medal in the 100 breast at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games and also captured Olympic titles on relays in Rio and at her final Olympics last year in Paris.
The US women’s 4×100 medley relay set a world record in 3:49.63. Regan Smith, Gretchen Walsh and Torri Huske were her teammates in the Americans’ victory over defending Olympic champion Australia.
“Just an awesome way to cap off the meet,” King said afterward.
At the delayed 2020 Tokyo Olympics, King earned silver medals in the 200 breaststroke and 4×100 medley relay and a bronze in the 100 breast.
She narrowly missed the medal stand in the 100 breast in Paris, with one-hundredth of a second separating bronze medalist Mona McSharry of Ireland and the fourth-place tie between King and Italy’s Benedetta Pilato in 1:05.60.
King has long been known not just for her accomplishments in the pool, but for her bold, unapologetic personality and fierce competitive drive. She has never shied from speaking her mind, often calling out perceived cheaters and criticizing what she views as lax anti-doping policies in international swimming. At the 2016 Rio Games, she famously wagged her finger at Russian rival Yuliya Efimova, who had served a doping suspension, in a moment that became a flashpoint in the sport’s culture wars.
Unfiltered and outspoken, King embraced the role of provocateur in and out of the pool. She’s been called brash and cocky, but her confidence has been a cornerstone of her dominance. Her pre-race stare-downs and confrontational antics – including asking awkward questions or making noise behind the blocks – earned her a reputation as a master of mind games. “I don’t think I’m a villain,” she once said. “But if that’s how people see me when I race, that’s fine. I’m just being me.”
For King, being home in Indiana next week will mean so much. It was also in Indianapolis last June during the US Olympic swimming trials that boyfriend and former Indiana University swimmer James Wells proposed to her just off the pool deck – and she said yes.
“I have been racing in the IU Natatorium since I was 10 years old,” she wrote. “From state meets, to NCAAs, Nationals, and anything in between, this pool has been my home. I didn’t quite make it 20 years (only 18) of racing in Indy, but this is as close as I’m gonna get! I look forward to racing in front of a home crowd one last time.”
