Ryan Murphy Says He Lost Backstroke Gold to Not Clean Russian Evgeny Rylov
On 7/30/21 at 12:42 AM EDT
The first major doping allegation from the Tokyo Summer Olympics happened shortly after the men s 200-meter backstroke on Thursday night, which was late Friday morning in Japan. And it was an American accusing a Russian swimmer of being not clean.
Shortly after the men s gold medal race ended, American Ryan Murphy said he won the silver medal instead of gold because race winner Evegny Rylov was not clean of performance-enhancing drugs.
Murphy, who was the defending Olympic champion and by far the best backstroke swimmer in America, was asked after the 200-meters if he thought the race was fair. He knew his true thoughts would probably get him into trouble, so he danced around the question and answered the parts he felt would be fair game for him to respond. He still felt like all swimmers weren t clean.