BLOOMINGTON – Lilly King will let you in on a secret.

King, five-time Olympic medalist, owner of the Games record in the 100-meter breaststroke, winner of fistfuls of golds at a variety of world championships, isn’t stressed out by the Olympics.

By the time they arrive, everyone’s made it. Everyone’s in their best shape. Everyone’s proven they belong. The idea of competition becomes inviting, not intimidating.

Olympic trials, however, are a different animal.

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“It’s a really weird meet where the pressure just gets to everybody. You’ll see people swim races they’ve never swam before, try to do something different to have, I guess, the swim of their career,” she said. “Trials is definitely the more stressful meet.”

Which is why you’d have found Lilly King — one of the greatest swimmers of her generation, with nothing left to prove in the sport — fighting off nerves earlier this month in the run-up to her Trials race at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.

Bunkered in with fellow Hoosier Anna Peplowski (who made the team for Paris as well), King spent the hours before their respective swims watching movies, making bracelets, anything to distract them from the all-or-nothing nature of the challenge awaiting them. King wondered if Peplowski thought King, a veteran of so many of these high-stakes moments, was distracting her younger teammate, but even now, King needed just as much help relieving the pressure.

It's something King has learned across (now) three Games: There will always be something new and exciting about the Olympics.

“I think it's no matter what Olympics you go to it's gonna be new,” King said. “It’s still the Olympics and it's only my third. World championships is every year so that gets old, but the Olympics doesn't. I’m still excited, still looking forward to new things, and swimming fast.”

These Olympics feel undeniably different for King.

She was a rookie in Rio de Janeiro eight years ago, when her finger wag, followed by her gold-medal swim, delivered one of those Games’ seminal moments. And there’s no getting past the strange un-Olympic-ness of the Tokyo Games, pushed from 2020 to 2021 and heavily altered in experience by COVID-19 protocols.

These will be the first Olympics that are both normal and familiar to King’s experience. They are, therefore, distinct in their own way.

“I kind of feel like this is my first all-in Olympic experience,” King said. “I don’t feel I’ve been able to fully enjoy the Olympics yet. 2016 me would’ve rolled her eyes at that, but I’m not a kid anymore.”

They are distinct to King as well, because they will be her last.

While the Evansville native doesn’t plan on retiring right after Paris, she’s ready to call time on her Olympic career once these Games conclude.

And there’s peace in that, even for one of the most successful athletes in the world in her discipline.

King came to those Rio Games a rising star in her sport. Whether at the NCAA or international level, she has for the past eight years authored one of the greatest individual careers in the history of the breaststroke.

Maybe the greatest, period.

She’s also more circumspect now than she was then. The swimming world is smaller when you’ve conquered so much of it. Age brings perspective.

“I’m at the point in my life where I’ve accomplished everything I’ve ever wanted to in this sport,” she said, “and I don’t think very many people can say that. I’m very fortunate.”

King’s goal, understandably, is to win in Paris. But for a swimmer whose childhood pool has been demolished and replaced by one with her name on it, conversations about legacy become difficult to avoid.

That presents a difficulty for King — it’s entirely at odds with her approach to the sport housing that legacy. A swimmer who longtime teammate Blake Pieroni described as, “more than anything, just a racer … it doesn’t matter how she feels or what the times are,” the idea of looking past what’s next is anathema to the success that’s brought those legacy conversations into focus.

“I’ve never really been somebody that lived in the past. I’m always just trying to be the best version of myself that day,” King said. “The legacy stuff is awesome, but I still feel like I have a lot more to do and see and experience.”

Eventually, that will mean life after swimming — after, as King put it, living 11 months of the year “tired and exhausted” from training. It already includes wedding planning, after longtime boyfriend and fellow former IU swimmer James Wells proposed on camera at this month’s Trials.

Right now, though, King is soaking up the moments as they come.

She can go to Paris safe in the knowledge this is her last go-round. She knows she may not swim a career-best time anymore, but that doesn’t mean maybe the best breaststroker in history can’t win.

There is more awaiting King in the coming weeks than just decks and times and medals, though. After the wide-eyed newness of Rio, and the undeniable weirdness of Tokyo, King heads to Paris for one final Games, prepared to enjoy every minute of them.

“Honestly, I feel like I’m just kind of taking it all in this time,” King said. “I’m just excited.”

Follow IndyStar reporter Zach Osterman on Twitter: @ZachOsterman.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana star Lilly King ready to savor Paris 2024, final Olympics