Yuliya Efimova Moving After Quarantine as Olympic Future Still Uncertain

Yulia Efimova at the 2019 World Championships. Photo Courtesy: Becca Wyant

Russian swimmer Yuliya Efimova was forced to move out of her rental house after a quarantine in the United States.

Efimova, who in 2013 tested positive for a banned substance and served a 16-month ban, has been training in California and the coronavirus pandemic has kept her in quarantine, along with the rest of the state.

But Efimova announced on the Russian Olympic Committee’s Instagram account that she is moving into new housing, which will have a pool.

“We are being evicted here,” Efimova said live on Instagram, according to RT.com. “I stayed here longer than I planned, because I had to leave for the Russian championship long ago. They (the tenants) kept us as long as they could, now we found another house, we’re moving to a house with a pool. It’s small, but it’s important for me to feel the water.”

• The Efimova-King rivalry

Yuliya Efimova has been one of the top breaststrokers in the world, but her career has been soaked in controversy. In 2013 she tested positive for a banned steroid which resulted in a 16-month ban, served between 2014 and 2015. But a FINA panel ruled that Efimova was not intentionally trying to cheat but was negligent in failing to read the label of a GNC store supplement.

In 2014, while she was serving a doping ban, Efimova was the July poster girl on the international federation’s calendar.

She is training for the now 2021 Tokyo Games, and it could be her fourth Olympics, if the Russian doping ban doesn’t affect her, given that she has previously tested positive. Efimova might be able to compete as a neutral athlete, as she did at Rio 2016 after she hired a lawyer to assist with that situation.

“Yes, long ago I made a doping violation,” Yuliya Efimova told RT.com in December. “But there are a great number of U.S. and European athletes who have a similar situation regarding doping, and they are competing without any restrictions. If you want to introduce those regulations, they must be equally applied to all athletes, not only Russian competitors.”

She did not mention that her 16-month suspension was an example of the leniency shown to “star” swimmers while many unknown swimmers are handed much longer bans for similar offenses.

In December when talking about the Russian blanket ban for Tokyo 2020, she told RT.com. “I will behave in a similar way [to 2016]. I have already hired a lawyer. There is a rule that a person can’t be punished twice for the same offense. If you violate a driving code or instigated a brawl you will not be punished twice for that. I hope it will work, but I cannot be sure of [a positive outcome].

“Right after my race at the Rio Games, I said that this doping controversy was not over, it was just the beginning, and we would have problems in the future. It was quite clear. And with every new year the situation is only getting worse and worse.”

Efimova, who was booed loudly from the stands each time she walked out to race at Rio 2016, has battled Lilly King on the biggest stages the past few years as King’s outspoken demeanor about the positive tests has fueled the rivalry even more — highlighted by King wagging her finger at Efimova after beating her in the 2016 Rio Olympics.

Will they have another battle for gold? Both athletes are preparing for that scenario, which could bring the rivalry to an even bigger level.

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Mattias Löwe

4 years ago

She should be banned for life anyway.

Ed Burton

4 years ago

Drug cheat, she shouldn’t be anywhere near the Olympics. ???

Pamela Goldsbro

4 years ago

Should be out for life.

HJ Oxie

4 years ago

Great let’s post an article about a 2X drug test failure. What country is the base of this website? Anyone know? It’s disturbing that Swimming World would promote an article about an “athlete” who failed multiple drug tests?

Craig Lord

4 years ago

Reply to HJ Oxie

HJ Oxie she remains, officially, a competitor and, to my knowledge, remains registered as a competitor in the United States … and i don’t see any official body attempting to change that … this article merely points out what she‘s up to, complete with her background. Come the big moment we won’t be able to ignore her … so why would we ignore her in between … that would make NO sense …. a news story is not a PR exercise. You have to read it to assess it and given you spoke about this as if it were a PR note, one has to assume you didn’t read it. ? Whether we agree with those who feel she and others in similar circs should have been banned for life or not, the fact is she wasn’t, they weren’t … and we will continue to write about them, in context.

Martin Levine

4 years ago

There should be extra quarantine for past cheats

Schreiber Paul Irina

4 years ago

Please ! Everyone has a rights for a mistake! Especially when we were young. So many other your heros weren’t 100% clear from all sorts of perspectives. She is clear now! Be NICE people!!!!!! Let her swim! It all what NOW is matter!

Tricia

4 years ago

For the CRITICS — Any understanding of perspective or realization that Russian athletes were pressured, rewarded and supported by their own government to dope to win for their country? If you were a gifted young athlete competing at that level and your government put that kind of pressure on you, would you have the strength and courage to turn away from a sport that provided you a kind of “freedom” and say “no” to a political system like Russia???

Craig Lord

4 years ago

Reply to Tricia

Tricia, there are specifics that relate to the subject of this article that transcend what you speak of but the point you make is one often lost on many. The lack of understanding has caused folk to call out 13-15-year-old GDR girls as ‘cheats’; the lack of understanding stretches to the parallels that clearly exist in the coercion, control and cultural malaise of systematic doping abuse and the sexual abuse that went on in USA Gym, with official knowledge, it seems, before a lack of action followed revelation of what ought to have been dealt with within an instant of complaint. Many other sports have suffered various forms of the same kinds of coercion, control and cultural malaise in a variety of forms. Athletes have started to take matters into their own hands, mostly on matters of self- and financial interest so far but with some encouraging signs that they are finally reaching for ‘solidarity’ and a deeper understanding how that is also in their own interests. Sport has a long way to go before it stops looking first at the teenage ‘cheat’ and starts looking first at the adult rogues and systems that make abuse and deceit the fuel of a massive economy, whether we count such things in dollars, large wages beyond the wildest dreams of all but a handful of Olympic champions, undeclared per diems and other benefits to ‘volunteers’ who are part of a big black market, or other measures, such as political ambitions stretching to use of sport as a flag-waving vehicle for proving the strength of nations. Some of the mechanisms that fed the GDR sports system half a century ago remain a part of sport to this day.

federico

4 years ago

Reply to Craig Lord

I love this response and feel this part of the story is constantly missed in coverage, the context. Which means everything. I find the instant judging on others is in stark contrast with the lack of recognition of the same issues we may have had at home, in multiple sports.
Thanks for this answer and I expect to have this balanced perspective more frequently. Until then, swimmers will continue to suffer from our own ignorance.

Craig Lord

4 years ago

Reply to federico

Thanks Federico.

Carylyn Waite

4 years ago

Someone let me know why she’s still able to compete? Let’s just not let her swim for the 2021 Olympics problem solved