The Sweet Meaning Behind the Goggles This Team USA Swimmer Wore to Win Gold at the Olympics
Alaskan teen Lydia Jacoby rocks her pink goggles for a reason.
Many of the athletes taking home medals at the Olympics this year have been participating in their sports since they were kids, and now, all that hard work is paying off—but this winner definitely hasn’t forgotten where she came from. If you watched swimming on July 26th, you probably noticed that Lydia Jacoby was wearing pink goggles when she won gold, and now, we know the sweet story behind her eyewear.
Jacoby, who’s 17 years old and from Alaska, won a gold medal after swimming in the 100-meter breaststroke, and stood out from crowd thanks to her brightly colored goggles.
It turns out her eyewear was actually given to her by a fellow Olympian—back when Jacoby was a kid.
Former Olympic swimmer and two-time medalist Jessica Hardy shared on social media that she had actually given Jacoby the pink goggles herself when she was in Alaska hosting a swimming clinic and that Jacoby had been wearing them ever since. Looks like they were probably good luck, especially considering the fact that Hardy mentioned she’d given them to her five years ago, when Jacoby would have only been 12 years old.
“Thank you for all the support and everything over these years,” Jacoby said after she won her medal, via E! News. “It’s been amazing.”
After a win like that, it’s hard to imagine that we’ve seen the last of those goggles. Why wouldn’t she keep wearing them to rack up even more medals in future Olympic games?