Tuesday, August 9, 2016

King Of the Pool

Lilly King is America's new swimming heroine.
She not only won the gold medal in the 100-meter breaststroke at the 2016 Olympics in Rio, she beat that Russian doper Yulia Efimova to the top of the podium.  And she was very self-righteous about it, as she should be, dissing Efimova for merely being in the race.  I'm glad King beat Efimova and left her with silver, but I'm still offended that Efimova gets a medal of any sort.  
This is not like the doping controversy in women's swimming in the 1996 Olympics, where there were and still are a lot of ambiguities (and I won't bring it up again beyond that, as I promised you all I wouldn't).  This case is far more clear-cut.  Anyone who's followed the story of Russian state-sponsored athlete-doping (have you been paying attention, Donald Trump?) should figure that out. 
Congratulations to American Cody Miller for getting the bronze medal in the 100-meter breaststroke on the men's side.  (Adam Peaty won the gold, natch.)  And also congratulations to Ryan Murphy for striking gold in the men's 100-meter backstroke. 

No comments: