Swim lesson
USA’s King shows cocky Russian who’s the boss in breaststroke, Christine Brennan writes,
The best rivalry in sports is being ignored by almost everybody.
It’s happening in a non- Olympic year in a pool in Budapest, Hungary, which might explain the difficulty with keeping up.
But in the dog days of summer, what could be better than Russia’s twice-banned drug cheat Yulia Efimova wagging her finger (again!) to mock her sport and her competitors, while the USA’s Lilly King stares at the ridiculous sideshow, dives into the pool and authoritatively beats her?
Isn’t it nice to know there’s somebody in this country who is willing to take on the Russians?
It has been almost a year since we were introduced to King and Efimova, two characters slicing through the waters of the bygone days of the Cold War.
As you might recall, Efimova, the 2015 world champion in the 100-meter breaststroke, kicked the whole crazy thing off by taking performance-enhancing drugs. Twice. She has a backpack full of excuses and explanations, but this is undeniable:
She comes from Russia, the most notorious, diabolical, drug-- cheating nation on Earth, and she has been banned not once but twice. She was banned from Rio, as was the entire Russian track and field team, but the international swimming federation gave her a free pass at the 11th hour and allowed her to compete.
Did she show up with grace, with class, with humility? No, she did not. She showed up to show off, stunningly wagging her finger after her semifinal win in the 100.
King, watching that race in the ready room before her semifinal, noticed Efimova’s action — who could miss it? — and answered with a finger wag of her own.
“You’re shaking your finger No. 1, and you’ve been caught for drug cheating,” King explained, admirably speaking for dozens of swimmers who were outraged that Efimova was allowed to compete in Rio. “I’m just not a fan.”
King went on to beat Efimova the next day, majestically backing up her tough words out of the water with her performance in it.
Move ahead to this week and the world championships. Efimova wins her semifinal in the 100 and, wouldn’t you know, decides to wag her finger again.
“Ridiculous,” commentator and Olympic gold medalist Rowdy Gaines said into his NBC microphone. Efimova didn’t deny later that she wanted to call attention to herself and “just give some fireworks.”
This time, King did not answer, instead going about her business, winning her semifinal.
The next day, King stared for several seconds at Efimova as they waited for the 100 final to begin, then beat her again, breaking the world record. Efimova ingloriously dropped to third behind King and fellow American Katie Meili, who finished second.
Gaines competed for the USA in the late 1970s and early 1980s against swimmers from the Soviet Union and East Germany, an era remembered foremost for massive Eastern Bloc doping.
“We lived and died by our rivalry with the Soviets and East Germans,” he told USA TODAY Sports on Wednesday. “It was good vs. evil in our mind, regardless if that was true or not. And with what is happening in the political landscape of the world now and with Efimova almost mocking the drug testing protocol (in addition to her poolside antics, she debuted a “Go to CAS” T-shirt that appeared to make fun of the appeals process for the Court of Arbitration for Sport), it is turning into that with this rivalry.”
The two are scheduled to face each other twice more this week, in the 200 breaststroke Thursday and Friday and the 50 breaststroke Saturday and Sunday. King is heavily favored to win the 50 and Efimova the 200.
But it’s the 100 where they meet at their best, where King has won twice in less than a year.
“At the end of the day,” Gaines said, “you have to back it up. We did in the ’70s and early ’80s and so does Lilly. She talks the talk but walks the walk.”