US swimmers fall short in mixed 4x100 medley relay debut, but 17-year-old Lydia Jacoby earns praise

TOKYO — Relays at the Olympics have always been an adventure for U.S. athletes in track and field. There have been batons dropped, passing zones missed, minor collisions — if it could have happened, it has happened to the Americans.

USA Swimming seems to be picking up on that unfortunate trend.

In the inaugural mixed 4x100-meter medley relay at the Olympics, in which two women and two men from each country swim the four strokes in an order determined by their coaches, the United States, a strong medal favorite, finished a disappointing fifth.

The U.S. seemed out of synch throughout the race, but things went from bad to worse when 17-year-old breaststroke gold medalist Lydia Jacoby ended up wearing her goggles around her mouth for the entirety of her 100-meter swim.

“I’ve never really had that happen before,” she said. “I was definitely panicking a little. I could still breathe. I think my turn was where it was most rough because I couldn’t see the wall but other than that, I feel like I pulled through. It was out of my control so I just swam as best as I could with what was happening at the moment.”

Veteran backstroker Ryan Murphy, a U.S. team captain who swam the opening leg of the relay, praised Jacoby for handling the situation as well as she did.

“Anyone that’s swam with their goggles in their mouth like she did, she did fantastic,” he said.

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Torri Huske, 18, handled the butterfly leg, followed by multiple gold medalist Caeleb Dressel anchoring the relay in the freestyle. Because of the order the Americans used, the United States was in eighth (last) place when Dressel entered the pool, going against seven women swimming their team’s freestyle leg.

Although he did pass three swimmers to move into fifth place, it was far too much of a challenge for him and the hard-luck Americans to overcome.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: USA's mixed gender relay 5th in Olympics; Lydia Jacoby's goggles fall