Kentucky fan living in Alaska enjoyed celebrating gold medal swim by Seward’s Lydia Jacoby

Some Seward High School teachers were among those watching Lydia Jacoby on the victory podium at the Tokyo Olympics in a Seward bar Monday night. (Jonathan Boswell Photo)

Jonathan Boswell is a 2018 University of Kentucky graduate from Lexington who works in the tourism industry and just happens to be working in Seward, Alaska, now for a company that does cruises into the glaciers and fjords of Kenai Fjords National Park.

“We get thousands of tourists from all over the world wanting to see the glaciers and wildlife the park has to offer,” Boswell said.

Monday, though, nobody in Seward, including Boswell, was worried about glaciers or anything other than the Tokyo Olympics because Lydia Jacoby of Seward was swimming in the 100-meter breaststroke.

Just being in the 100-meter final was a huge accomplishment for the 17-year-old Jacoby — and everyone in Seward.

“Lydia is a big deal in Seward. Her dad and mom, although not currently, were captains of ships that my company uses to go out and see the National Park. Seward is a very small town, not even a traffic light,” Boswell said.

Like many of the residents, Boswell opted to watch the Olympics at one of the bars in town that was mainly filled with locals hoping for the best for their local star.

“Seward being a small town, everyone knows Lydia. She gained a bit of fame in the (Olympic) Trials leading up to Olympics but was by no means a favorite to win any medal, much less the gold with her USA teammate (Lilly King) being the heavy favorite for the gold,” Boswell said.

Instead, Jacoby stunned the world. She passed King and South African Tatjana Schoenmaker in the final meters to win in 1 minute, 4.95 seconds, and become the first American female swimmer to win gold in Tokyo. She beat the South African by .27 seconds with King, a three-time Olympic medalist, taking third.

Her victory touched off such a raucous celebration in the bar that NBC showed the celebration on its Olympic coverage.

“We in Seward knew she could pull off the big one but not many people outside of Alaska thought she even had a chance to make it past the semifinals,” Boswell said. “We are not a big town, but a very proud town. Can’t wait until she comes back to Seward in the coming days to a hero’s welcome.”

He did confirm that Alaska did have just one Olympic size pool and it’s in Anchorage, about a two-hour drive from Seward. Jacoby swims regularly in the high school pool — the only pool in Seward.

“It took elite dedication to train in Seward and also driving to Anchorage on a one-way highway just to train in our state’s only Olympic-sized pool,” Boswell said.

Cell phone service/WiFi along with TV connectivity is not available everywhere in Seward outside of a few restaurants/bars and Boswell admitted it had been hard to watch the Olympics. He has been using Twitter to follow UK athletes and is anxious to watch hurdler Sydney McLaughlin start her gold-medal pursuit in the 400-meter hurdles Saturday.

Fortunately, he often sees UK fans in Seward.

“With international travel almost non-existent this year, Alaska has been filled with tourists from the lower 48 (states). I see Kentucky fans almost daily on our boats because they always wear UK shirts and jackets,” he said.

“I love seeing them and it makes me miss Kentucky. Makes me happy the pride Kentuckians have outside the state.”

However, the pride Seward has for Jacoby right now is unmatched.

“Seward is not an easy place to live by any means which makes it so much more special that someone could win an Olympic gold medal on the world’s biggest platform,” he said. “Unbelievably proud of her and what she’ll bring to this community.”

Also, I had no idea I had a connection with Boswell, who says he is looking forward to UK’s football season when I reached out to him after seeing his social media post about being in the bar in Seward celebrating the gold medal.

“Shout out to my grandpa (Charles Vahlkamp) who reads the paper and what you write every day in Danville,” Boswell said. “Wish he could’ve witnessed what happened here in Seward today because it truly is hard to believe.”