US swimmer Lily King hints that the Russians ‘shouldn’t be here’ at the Olympics due to doping

[ad_1]

US swimmer Lily King doubled down on his criticism of Russian athletes hours after the head of the Russian Olympic Committee said his teams’ medals were the “best answer” to critics who questioned why the country was allowed to compete in the wake of doping scandals.

“There are a lot of people here who shouldn’t be here,” said King, who won a silver and a bronze medal in Tokyo.

King made the remarks while seated next to Ryan Murphy, another American swimmer who this week appeared to target a country that has repeatedly broken doping rules.

Murphy later said that his comments were not specifically aimed at Russians. The king was more direct.

“I wasn’t racing anyone from a country that should have been banned and instead got slapped on the wrist and renamed their national flag,” she said. “So, personally, I wasn’t impressed. But Ryan was.”

Her comments came hours after the President of the Republic of China, Stanislav Pozdnyakov, said critics “actually assume that our athletes cannot compete without doping”, but that the Russian athletes in Tokyo “proved the opposite not only in words but in their actions and results.”

It was revealed that Russia launched a massive state-sponsored program to dodge testers ahead of the 2014 Winter Games in Sochi. I’ve sent drained teams to the last two Olympics as punishment.

The country’s name, flag and national anthem have been banned from the Olympics and other major sporting events after a legal battle with the World Anti-Doping Agency. After competing under the title of OAR – Olympic Athletes from Russia – at the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang, she competed as the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) in Japan.

Russian athletes won forty medals in Tokyo, 11 of them gold.

Murphy bemoaned Friday that his races “maybe not been clean” after taking the silver behind Russian swimmer Evgeny Rylov in the 200m backstroke. This came three days after he occupied the full back position behind Rylov and Russian Kliment Kolesnikov.

On Saturday, he said the suspension was not aimed at Rylov but was instead aimed at addressing suspicions of doping throughout the sport.

“I think things were definitely, they were taken a little differently than what was meant by the question asked of me,” he said. “I was asked a question about doping and swimming and I answered honestly. I think there is doping in swimming.”

.

[ad_2]