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Tokyo Olympics: American swimmer Murphy voices doping concerns

US swimmer Ryan Murphy (l.) has failed to add to the two gold medals he won at Rio 2016.

Tokyo, July 30: American swimmer Ryan Murphy voiced concerns about doping following the victory of Russian Evgeny Rylov in the 200m backstroke on Friday by saying: "I'm swimming in a race that's probably not clean."

Murphy had to settle for silver at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre after being beaten for a second time this week by the 24-year-old Rylov, who also took Murphy's 100m backstroke Olympic title on Tuesday (July 27).

"I've got 15 thoughts, 13 of them would get me into a lot of trouble," Murphy told reporters when asked shortly after his event about any doping concerns.

At a later news conference, however, Murphy clarified his comments when asked if he was accusing any of his rivals of cheating. He said he was discussing doping in swimming in general before congratulating Rylov and British bronze medal winner Luke Greenback.

"I need to be clear, my intention is not to make any allegations here. Congratulations to Luke and Evgeny. They did an incredible job, they're both very talented swimmers," he elaborated. "At the end of the day (...) I do believe it [doping] is still big in swimming and it is what it is."

The comments referenced the decision by CAS (the Court of Arbitration for Sport) in December 2020 that halved a four-year ban that the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) had imposed on Russia in 2019 following the revelation that the country had been running a state-sponsored doping program.

Russian athletes are allowed to compete at 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics and 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, although the Russian team name and national anthem has been banned.

Ryan Murphy has lost both of his Olympic backstroke titles to Evgeny Rylov of the Russian Olympic Committee

Gold medals

In the pool, Tatjana Schoenmaker was overjoyed after becoming the first South African woman to win an Olympic swimming gold for 25 years as she obliterated the eight-year-old world record in the 200m breaststroke with a time of 2min 18.95sec.

Having needed crowd-funding to make it to the Olympics, Great Britain's BMX cyclist Bethany Shriever went on to win gold having not lost a single race. Niek Kimmann, had earlier taken gold in the men's discipline.

The first gold medal of the day went to Greece's Stefanos Ntouskos, who won the men's single sculls final with a new Olympic best time of 6min 40.45sec.

Germany update

In rowing, the men's eight missed out on gold as they added to their silver medals from Rio 2016. After three World Championship titles in a row, the German Rowing Association's flagship boat lost to New Zealand in the final with Great Britain in third.

Led by two-goal scorer Lisa Altenburg, the women's field hockey team made it four wins out of four in the group stages courtesy of a commanding 4-1 victory against South Africa.

Bronze in kayak

More news from Tokyo 2020

Coronavirus numbers continue to rise after a new daily high was registered with 27 positive cases at the Games. There had been 24 new infections the previous day.

This was announced by the organizers of Tokyo 2020 on Friday. The positive cases again include three athletes, but the names of those affected have not been published by the organizers. It's the most positive cases registered in a single day since recording began on July 1.

Tokyo 2020 has seen a total of 220 coronavirus cases confirmed, 27 of which have affected athletes competing in the Games.

Tokyo Olympic Digest: Thursday 29 July

Source: DW

Story first published: Friday, July 30, 2021, 14:01 [IST]
Other articles published on Jul 30, 2021