Swimming: King and Efimova advance for possible rematch

Lilly King wins Gold and Yulia Efimova of Russian Federation wins Silver in the Women’s 100m Breaststroke Final at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games on August 8, 2016.

“Efimova has tested positive five times and she’s gotten away with it again”.

“You’re shaking your finger No. 1 and you’ve been caught drug cheating”, she said. “I’m not a fan. We don’t think it, we feel it”, she added.

Relations between the sporting superpowers have been tense since USA calls for the entire Russian team to be banned from Rio following allegations of government-backed doping.

“When they hear stories about contaminated supplements, they think it’s all BS”, he said.

Based on the world rankings, King expected she would need to at least equal her U.S. Olympic Swim Trials semifinal time – her seeded time – to reach the semifinals.

King won the 100-meter breaststroke gold while setting an Olympic record of 1:04.93. And as she began talking in Russian, a flurry of words and emotions and tears, the moderator asked King if she would like a translation headset so that she could understand what Efimova was saying.

Her competitors took an entirely different view of the situation.

The IOC’s acceptance of most of the team from Putin’s corrupt realm may have been the last straw for today’s athletes, but appeasing dictatorships is nothing new for the IOC. This includes her USA teammate, sprinter Justin Gatlin.

“Do I think people who have been caught for doping offenses should be on the team?” she said.

“It breaks my heart and I wish somebody would do something about it”.

In response to the fierce attack on Russia’s silver medal winning swimmer, thousands of Russians took to Twitter, Facebook, and Vkontakte (the latter is Russia’s largest social network) to bash Phelps and King.

After completing a round of television interviews the Russian wept uncontrollably when she saw agent Anna Mitkova across a barrier in the media interview area. Efimova failed a drug test in 2014. Initially, FINA banned seven Russian swimmers.

The road that 19-year-old Indiana University sophomore Lilly King took to an Olympic Gold Medal in the 100-meter breaststroke is not the road you’re supposed to take to Olympic glory. Efimova had taunted King after winning the semi-final the night before, a move that only fueled King to a stunning victory and gold medal over her Russian rival.

The BBC prepared a special op-ed dubbed “Rio 2016 Olympics: Yulia Efimova and the ‘fog of suspicion.'” .

Nevertheless, she has been largely considered as one of the most controversial athletes of the current Olympics. While she said after the race she was “just happy to be here” after the turmoil leading up to the Games, she didn’t even fully get to enjoy her historic achievement thanks to King and the narrative she helped create.