Swimmer Lydia Jacoby Won a Gold Medal in the Pink Goggles She Wore as a Kid

Lydia Jacoby just won an Olympic gold medal for swimming the 100-meter breaststroke, and she did so while rocking a pair of pink goggles with a special story behind them.

Jessica Hardy, a swimmer who medaled at the 2012 London Games, wrote on Twitter just before Jacoby’s meet on July 26, “Pink goggle watch! Help me cheer on Lydia Jacoby in tonight’s 100 breaststroke final 7:17PM PST. Met this girl hosting a clinic at her home pool in Alaska 5 years ago & she’s still racing in my goggles since. Go get em Lydia proud of you no matter what happens!”

Maybe it was Hardy’s well wishes, those lucky goggles, or the fact that Jacoby had the swim of a lifetime, but the Alaskan native took home the gold. She beat out her teammate, Lilly King, who won the same event during the 2016 Rio Games. (King took home a bronze medal this year.)

As Jacoby is just 17, this means she’s had those goggles since she was 12. So sweet!

On the podium Jacoby represented not only the United States but her state, Alaska; she’s the first Olympic swimmer ever from the state, which has only one 50-meter pool.

“A lot of big-name swimmers come from big, powerhouse clubs,” Jacoby told the Associated Press. “Me coming from a small club, in a state with such a small population, really shows everyone that you can do it no matter where you’re from.” Jacoby’s hometown of Seward has a population of just 2,733 people. An unlikely origin for a gold-medal-winning swimmer, perhaps, but maybe Lydia Jacoby knew she was destined for the Games. Maybe that’s why she held onto those goggles. Or maybe she just knew they looked cute as heck. During her winning swim, she was sporting pink nails too.

Originally Appeared on Glamour