Last night, America’s Lilly King took down Yulia Efimova of Russia in the 100m breaststroke final in order to claim gold and back up her talk about Efimova’s previous positive doping tests.
Following the race, fellow Indiana swimmer and Olympic bronze medallist Cody Miller tweeted out the following:
BOOOOM!! ????????????????AMERICA PREVAILS!! @_king_lil is OLYMPIC CHAMPION!! ???????????????? ITS LIKE ROCKY 4!!!! #Olympics#TeamUSA
— Cody Miller (@swimiller) August 9, 2016
After seeing Miller’s tweet it got me thinking, yes, this is kind of like Rocky IV. Now let me set the record straight for a second. Rocky IV is my favorite movie, so when I saw this tweet I got excited because I realized I had just witnessed a version of Rocky IV, and not just any version, an Olympic swimming version of the greatest movie of all time.
LILLY KING IS ROCKY
Now, in Rocky IV, Rocky was the underdog. He had recently stopped fighting and only agreed to fight Ivan Drago in an attempt to avenge the death of his compatriot Apollo Creed who died in the ring with Drago.
King was the underdog heading into this meet without a question. The 19-year-old from Indiana had never competed at a major international competition, so she was in a way resembling Rocky from the first film when he “went the distance.”
For the sake of this comparison, Apollo Creed is going to represent clean sport. Drago killed Creed in the ring famously saying, “if he dies he dies.” That resembles Efimova’s Instagram post (not caring about clean sport) following her initial ban from the Olympic Games.
In order to avenge the “death” of clean sport, King challenged Efimova when she called her out on live television for her previous doping infractions.
When Efimova hit the wall in the first semifinal, she threw up a number one sign. King then did a finger wag clearly not impressed that Efimova thought she was number one.
“You wave your finger number one and you’ve been caught drug cheating…I’m not a fan,” said King.
Right there, King was Rocky Balboa agreeing to fight Ivan Drago (Yulia Efimova) in his ring, ready to take a win for Apollo Creed (clean sport) and for vengeance.
YULIA EFIMOVA IS IVAN DRAGO
Besides the obvious fact that both Efimova and Drago are Russian, the two similarities between them are there for the taking. Drago was part of a state-sponsored doping program to make him inhuman and unbeatable.
Although there is no evidence pointing to the fact that she was part of state-sponsored doping, Efimova had failed two doping tests during her career.
Her most famous one gave her a 16-month ban, and the most recent was for meldonium which is been linked to many Russian athletes. With her doping infractions and her previous medals, Efimova was arguably one of the favorites to win gold here in Rio.
This was her race to lose, having dominated the 1:05-range in-season in order to set that up. She was big bad Ivan Drago, and her participation in the Olympic Games was essentially killing Apollo Creed (clean sport), thus sparking the dual between both Efimova and King.
DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH-DUH – KING FIGHT NOW
Unfortunately there weren’t any crazy montages of Lilly King in the middle of nowhere using unconventional training methods to turn into a lean mean fighting machine, but the end plot still stayed the same as Rocky. (This is slight encouragement for her coach Ray Looze to set up a training base for King in the middle of the mountains during the off-season).
Considering the majority of Rocky 4 was training montages anyway, we can get to the chase.
King defeated Efimova in a stunning victory in order to smash the Olympic record, much like Rocky defeated Drago in an upset. The crowd at the end began to cheer for Rocky, understanding his unbreakable spirit, much like King representing the Olympic spirit.
The crowd cheered for King and booed Efimova, chanting “USA” after she took the gold and defeated the Russian swimmer.
King established herself as the real-life Rocky Balboa. The only thing that would have made this better is if she encouraged Efimova to never test positive again and said, “I GUESS WHAT I’M TRYING TO SAY IS IF I CAN CHANGE (into an Olympic champion), AND YOU CAN CHANGE, EVERYBODY CAN CHANGE (and compete clean).”
Isinbaeva was disqualified though she had never used drugs. Her world record was not beaten. It’s all about American big business and people who make money on Olympic champions. To make champions they needed to remove the strongest. The era of the Olympic Games is coming to its end. Athletes are just pawns in invisible hands. They sacrifice their whole lives for the sake of other people’s aims. King is too young and watches tv a lot. She won this day and let’s congratulate her on that
It’s probably too late to get into this discussion, but I don’t see how anyone can feel sorry for her in this situation. I actually have more sympathy for the GNC supplement thing than this. She is a perfectly healthy woman who was taking a heart medication intended for sick people solely for the purpose of improving athletic performance. The fact that it wasn’t specifically banned until recently doesn’t negate the fact that she is intentionally out there looking for substances (medications) to enhance her performance. The doping agencies are constantly playing catch up to the creativity of individuals trying to figure out a way to cheat. It is a direct indication of her character that she was willing to… Read more »
The fact that you like Rocky IV is awesome!
Don’t like this cold war type crap at all.
Funny but it would be perfect if King appeared to be doped too 😀
No need for that. She should have been disqualified. Illegal turn. 95% of NCAA refs would have disqualified her.
100% of NCAA refs would have been out of position to see her touch. That call falls on the shoulders of a turn judge, and the ref just takes the turn judge’s word for what he/she saw. But hey, you seem to (think you) know more about officiating than the folks working the Olympic deck.
Benefit of the doubt goes to the hater?
Shut it down. Its enough. get a life
So who would Jessica Hardy be in the ring?
My two favorite swimmers (so far) at Rio are Lilly King and Mack Horton. They showed some grit to confront dopers/cheaters outside the pool and defeat them in the pool.
Efimova has actress-quality looks and now has attempted actress-level drama by “playing the victim” with all the tears about how she was shunned after the race and on the medal podium. Maybe she doesn’t realize that swimmers and fans don’t appreciate three-peat offenders of performance-enhancing drugs.
Kudos to Mack and Lilly!
They can beat the doping drum some other time…. i hate drama makers. Just swim!
That pic of Efimova though…