Not her job to decide the punishment for other athletes. If she doesn’t want to compete against them, that’s up to her, but she agreed to the code of the Olympic Athlete, and I think her statements were unsportsmanlike.
She can’t even have an opinion? Lots of athletes think athletes that have had doping violations shouldn’t compete.
She has every right to have an opinion and voice it. If you followed track and field closely (I do) you would know that there has been huge controversy (in large part brought forth by the revelations of Steve Magness) about the US runners and even Galen Rupp. Alberto Salazar and even Nike are not out of the shadow. It’s something that is discussed constantly and everyone has an opinion. Many of us agree with what Lily King said. It you think it is unsportsmanlike, you will have to feel that way about the maybe 60% of our runners who might actually be clean.
Ledecky turning down $5 million income/year to attend college.
Do you think she should work a couple of years and then go to college to learn how to manage her money?
I commend her, it sounds like she wants to maintain her amateur status so she can swim collegiately and to be honest if she does that, go to the next games and does well, she might even be more popular because she didn’t make an immediate money grab. I also commend her because that kind of popularity and pressure at 19 can be difficult to take, if she goes through 4 years of school as an amateur she will have time to mature, and then she can hit the big time.
Yeah, she could over the next 4 years get hurt, not be able to swim any more, there is that risk, but given that swimmers can keep going into their 30’s, this isn’t like football where a career can be over in the blink of an eye, she has a lot of years after college to do all that, she could be swimming in the next 2 or three olympics easily…and given her drive and how good she is, I think she will only make even more after school. One of the scary things is she is only 19 , and she will still be growing a bit, so can you imagine what she will do in 4 years from now?
I don’t agree that Lilly King ‘said what needed to be said’. The decision on who competes is left to the Olympic governing committees and Gatlin was cleared to swim.
Lilly came across as spoiled and rude by embarrassing a competitor. Maybe Lilly takes something now that is later a banned substance? What if Gatin was given this drug by Russia (what choice would she have). Where is Lilly Kings judgement for the Americans who have had past doping scandals but are now free to compete.
Her job was to swim for her country not to cause extra friction with a not so friendly country.
If Lilly King was later found to be using a banned substance, then she would have her medals taken away and she would be in disgrace, not to mention a hypocrite. She doesn’t have the right to determine who competes, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have the right to express an opinion, when you get to be an olympic athlete there is nothing that says they can’t express their opinions. As far as causing extra friction with a no so friendly country, that is kind of besides the point, if the US prides itself on freedom of speech and on being able to express your opinion, then what Putin thinks or what Russians as a whole think doesn’t matter much, she still has the right to say it, as others have the right to criticize what they are saying, and if the Russians don’t like it, well, they can sulk, who cares? Likewise, if people criticize the Chinese for their state sponsored doping, they are within their rights shrug. I don’t think Lilly King behaved particularly well, to be honest, she could have made a point without doing what she did, she could have made a statement by winning and then saying something like “It is possible to win swimming clean, it takes a lot more work, but it is worth it” and leave it at that.
Then again, for all the talk of Sportsmanship at the Olympics, there have been plenty of cases of that, the Australian Men’s swimming team at the Sydney Olympics behaved pretty badly when they won, making fun of the US men’s team, The guy from South Africa, Chad LeClos, didn’t exactly behave well when he was shadowboxing in front of michael phelps or glaring at him (didn’t do him a lot of good). Doesn’t change much about the games, they are what they are, and quite honestly, trying to claim that these are all about bringing the youth of the world together, about good sportsmanship and about integrity, need to read a bit about the IOC and what the games really mean (often lining IOC officials pockets with $$$ seems to be the main meaning these days), so a bit of boorish or childish behavior from an athlete pales in comparison.\
I personally found the golden moment of the games to be when 2 total strangers helped each other after a fall, they are the sports Hero’s in my eyes.
We personally know an Olympic athlete that did exactly that–helped another after a fall. And I can tell you it did make those watching very proud to know her.
“I don’t agree that Lilly King ‘said what needed to be said’. The decision on who competes is left to the Olympic governing committees and Gatlin was cleared to swim.”
Would have been interesting to see Justin Gatlin swim in the Olympics because he’s actually a track athlete - a sprinter.
MofWC is right that a cloud of dope suspicion hangs over some big time US running coaches, athletes, and programs. Just because they always test clean doesn’t mean they are. Remember BALCO? Marion Jones never flunked a drug test in her career. She was done in by documentation that came to light, not by drug testing.
So I do decry the doping by the Russians. But I don’t assume that their American competitors are any cleaner. Where the Russians outdid everybody was not in the doping but in the government involvement in it. If we had a comparable doping scandal in the US we would have a US cabinet secretary, the head of the FBI, and the head of the USOC, the whole USADA (anti-doping organization), and a lot more, all in on it.
The US, being the land of free enterprise, our sport doping is run not by the government but by private coaches and training teams, perhaps with the funding and cooperation of shoe companies and other sponsors. But like the Russians, it’s big, it’s sophisticated, it’s pervasive, and it’s cheating.
I used to go big time track meets a lot: Olympics, World Champs, US OlympicTrials, NCAA Champs. But not any more. I confine myself to local high school meets now, where the athletes are (probably) clean. I don’t have inside information, but my guess is that he highest level of track you can watch in the US and be reasonably sure you are watching (mostly) clean athletes is NCAA Div. III.
"The guy from South Africa, Chad LeClos, didn’t exactly behave well when he was shadowboxing in front of michael phelps or glaring at him (didn’t do him a lot of good). "
Lol. Phelps’ “Darth Vader” face was hilarious.
“I personally found the golden moment of the games to be when 2 total strangers helped each other after a fall, they are the sports Hero’s in my eyes.”
The US athlete in that was Abbey D’Agostino, Dartmouth class of 2014. My daughter was in one class with her back in 2013. Abbey was already a big hero in the Dartmouth student/alumni community. But that incident became her total apotheosis in the eyes of Dartmouth.
Someone who used to post here on CC (years ago) had a son who was strongly recruited as a swimmer by many good college programs. He wound up at an Ivy with a strong program and quit the team before the season even started because there was so much doping. My son was a recruited athlete and had friends in another sport (Ivy league school- top national program in non-revenue sport) who used steroids extensively and knew when to use them so they would pass tests. None of us who follow athletics are saying the US athletes are squeaky clean. I believe many of them are, but I’m the one who stood by Lance Armstrong until the bitter end! My money is on Meb being clean. Also Kate Grace.
It was how Lilly King did it that annoyed me. The finger wagging, not letting it rest even after she won gold (some have called her a “sore winner”) about a competitor who was cleared to compete. She is 19 so that can probably account for some of it. Usain Bolt has moved beyond anything with Justin Gatlin and saw him as a legitimate competitor, and from what I have read,did not agree with any booing of Gatlin. Gatlin actually said he teared up with knowing that Bolt respected him.
Tyson Gay is a US runner who lost a medal to previous doping and he was given a spot on the US relay team this year. Why wasn’t Lilly King so vocal about our own athletes with past offenses?
Sly- are you not paying attention? She WAS! She was specifically asked about Justin Gatlin (US) and she said no one who had been caught doping should be there.
I find it interesting that the younger generations are not interested in the Olympics. I grew up in a family that stopped everything to watch every minute of Olympics, but of course we only had access to about 3 hrs of prime time coverage. The only possible spoiler alert would be turning off radio news to avoid hearing who won something. In those days we never had a chance to watch the small interesting stuff like archery, badminton or judo because Americans weren’t in those sports.
So I myself grew up addicted to the Olympics, although I probably didn’t watch much in my 20s because my social life was full at that time in life.
But I could not seem to get my college Senior D interested in watching. She sat down for a couple of minutes but she is too busy with her phone and social life. Maybe when she gets older
Some 19 year olds , like Lilly, may have little context for this in terms of the past- there is heightened testing , different training with emphasis on “clean” training, there are banned substances that get added all the time, etc. Jessica Hardy came back?
@coralbrook , I loved the Olympics growing up but I do think there is probably not as much interest by younger people these days. My first crush (besides the Beatles) was Jean-Claude Killy!
I think that if Lily King were male she wouldn’t be receiving the same scrutiny.
Think I posted this before.
“That’s just my personality. I’m not this sweet little girl, that’s not who I am. If I do need to stir it up to put a little fire under my butt or anybody else then that’s what I’m going to do.”
Lily King
Olympic Gold Medalist
When you compete at this level you want a level playing field. Guess I don’t understand what is so hard to comprehend about that? Are you supposed to smile and accept it or call someone out.
There was no reason to call the other swimmer out. She was cleared to complete, period.