King, the 19-year-old Indiana University student, relegated Russia’s Yulia Efimova, a confirmed drug cheat who was controversially reinstated into the Olympic program just hours before competition started last week, to the silver medal after a long war of words regarding whether her rival should have been allowed to swim.
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Backstage, King was watching, and she raised her finger right back, wagging it at Efimova with an artfulness that would make Dikembe Mutumbo proud.
After American swimmer Lilly King took the gold medal in the 100-meter breaststroke Monday night, it was entirely expected that the tiff between King and Russian swimmer Yulia Efimova would continue to surface in the water. She had criticised Efimova before the race.
Efimova initially held her emotions in check after King beat her to the line and celebrated wildly alongside her.
“Do I think people who have been caught for doping offences should be on the team?” The 2004 Olympic gold medalist and 2005 world champion then failed a test for the banned steroid testosterone in 2006. At the medal ceremony, King and team-mate Katie Melli, who had finished third, threw their arms around each other while Efimova stood aside awkwardly.
LILLY KING, American 100m breaststroke gold medallist, when asked if her anti-drug stance included compatriot Justin Gatlin, the sprinter who has served two drug bans. The second time it was not my mistake. Efimova has twice been suspended for doping, though the second ban was overturned earlier this year. “There should not be any bouncing back and forth”. “I’m not this sweet little girl, that’s not who I am”.
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“I can not understand why Yefimova is being insulted”. I am very sad when I see my sport getting like this. “When I see the 200m podium, I want to be sick. It’s like I’m seeing athletics, with two or three dopers in every final”, he was quoted as saying by French media. “That we can still compete clean and do well at the Olympic Games, and that’s how it should be”. She claimed to have stopped using meldonium before it was prohibited, and she was able to compete after the International Swimming Federation reversed the ban.
