PARIS, France — Thursday turned out to be a really special day for several of our Hoosier Olympians.
Let's start with this: The final individual Olympic race ever for Indiana's own Lilly King.
She's a three-time Olympian, five-time medalist out of Evansville and IU, but she said this is her last games. She finished eighth in the 200-meter breast, with fellow American Kate Douglass taking gold.
"The last couple years have been really great for the two of us, just kind of helping each other develop into better racers and obviously it paid off really well for Kate tonight, so, really super excited for her," King said.
(NOTE: The above video is an earlier 13News interview with Lilly King after she competed in the 100-meter breaststroke finals Monday.)
And we are excited for Carmel's Alex Shackell. She competed in Thursday's 200-meter butterfly final, finishing sixth. I talked to her right after.
"It was really cool," Shackell said. "Obviously, I wanted to be a little better than that. I've been faster than that many times throughout the season, so a little upset with that. But just taking it forward and trying to do better and preparing for four years from now. Sounds like crazy, long time, but I mean, this came really fast, too, so it was a great experience."
Now to fencing, where Notre Dame's Lee Kiefer snags another gold medal, this time in the women's foil team competition. She helped defeat Italy in the gold medal match, 45-to-39.
And we're looking ahead to Saturday, because Carmel's Rajeev Ram has landed himself a spot in the gold medal match. He and his partner advanced by beating the Czech Republic in two sets to move on.
"Came out today, stuck to our guns, stuck to our side," Ram said. "Played, you know, with each other and put on a great performance, I thought."
Ram will compete for that gold medal Saturday at 6 a.m.
We have plenty more competition between now and then, and our live coverage from Paris continues Friday on 13Sunrise.