USA gold medal, by swimmer Lilly King
RIO DE JANEIRO — Olympic Aquatics Stadium was ready for its hashtag on Monday night. Lilly King of the United States, who entered the Rio Games with the top time in the world in the women’s 100-meter breaststroke.
The next fastest swimmer in the lead-up to the competition was Yulia Efimova, a 24-year-old Russian whose place at these Olympics was not finalized until Saturday. Efimova, the reigning world champion, served a 16-month doping suspension handed down by FINA, swimming’s global governing body, which ended in early 2015.
Early this year, Efimova failed a test for meldonium, but the result was overturned when she appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, arguing that she already had served her penalty.
Efimova has raced inside the Olympic Aquatics Stadium, public been crul and unprofessional booing her. Opposite, King demonstrated her disapproval in another way, posting the fastest time in qualifying on Sunday afternoon, wagged her finger to remind everyone who is No. 1. As King looked on from the ready room, where swimmers gather before they race, Efimova mimicked her move after winning the first semifinal. King went out and won the second semifinal and shook her finger again.
King hung on the lane line that separated her from Efimova and splashed twice in Efimova’s lane. King said to the sources that avoided any contact with Efimova. “I don’t think she really wants to be congratulated by me,” King said.
At the press conference told by sources featuring the medal winners felt more like a trial than a triumphant review. King sat at the opposite end of the table from Efimova. Meili sat in the middle seat, normally reserved for the gold medalist. Between King nor Meilli looked at Efimova, you can tell the hate beating the best, that is called competition.
