Rio 2016: Doping row roils waters of Rio pool

Rio de Janeiro: Olympic legend Michael Phelps backed young team-mate Lilly King in speaking out against dope cheats after she vanquished drug-tainted Russian Yulia Efimova for Olympic 100m breaststroke gold on Monday.

“I think you’re going to see a lot of people speaking up more,” said 19-time Olympic gold medallist Phelps. “I think she’s right, something needs to be done.”
King, a 19-year-old first-time Olympian, had made it clear she didn’t think Efimova belonged in the pool after serving a 16-month ban in the wake of a 2013 positive test and a positive test this year for meldonium.

Plenty agreed as the 24-year-old world champion from Russia was showered with boos as she took to the blocks. King led at the turn and repelled a late Efimova charge to win in an Olympic record of 1min 04.93sec, with the Russian second in 1:05.50. American Katie Miele was third in 1:05.69.

“I think it just proved that you can compete clean and still come out on top,” King said, adding that she had no regrets about her pre-race comments about Efimova.

“I’m actually glad I made a statement, and I ended up coming out on top in the race,” she said.

While King and Miele celebrated joyously together in the water, Efimova — who is also entered in the 200m breaststroke — hung on her lane rope before departing the pool deck.

‘Cold War’
She likened the reaction to her on the pool deck — almost unheard of at the Olympics where the “Olympic spirit” usually reigns — to the Cold War.
“For me it’s very hard to swim today, this is like three weeks of crazy,” said Efimova, who broke down in tears facing journalists after the race.

It was in contrast to the celebrations of China’s Sun Yang, another swimmer targeted by his peers for past drugs transgressions. Sun shook off controversy to win the 200m freestyle gold, cheered on by Chinese team-mates and supporters in the stands, one group of them seated behind a section of Aussies whose 400m free gold medallist Mack Horton this week branded Sun a drugs cheat — a reference to his three-month suspension in 2014 for a positive test for a banned stimulant.

Third at the 150-meter mark, Sun stormed past early leader Chad le Clos of South Africa to win in 1:44.65. Le Clos settled for silver in 1:45.20 with
American Conor Dwyer third.

Hungary’s Katinka Hosszu claimed her second gold in as many events with a storming victory in the 100m backstroke. The “Iron Lady” was sixth at the turn with world champion Emily Seebohm leading but stormed home to win in 58.45sec.

American Kathleen Baker was second in 58.75, just one one-hundredth of a second in front of China’s Fu Yuanhui and Canadian Kylie Masse, who shared bronze in 58.76.

Michael Phelps made a storming start to his semi-final, leading at every turn only to be overtaken by Tamas Kenderesi in the final 30 meters. Kenderesi topped the qualifying times in 1:53.96 while Phelps was second-fastest followed by Hungarian Laszlo Cseh and le Clos.