USC and Trojan Swim Club head coach Dave Salo says Russian breaststroker Yulia Efimova is not training with Trojan Swim Club, contrary to what has been reported by other media outlets.
Efimova is a former world champion and world record-holder in the breaststroke events for her native nation of Russia. She failed a doping test earlier this year, with trace amounts of newly-banned blood flow drug meldonium found in her system. Given that it was her second positive doping test, she faced a lifetime ban from the sport.
The swimmer maintained her innocence in the matter, and her former coach, Irina Vyatchanina, spoke publicly on her behalf, saying Efimova tested positive for only a small enough trace of meldonium that it could have remained in her system since last year, when the substance was still legal.
FINA officially lifted her ban this week, though the case will still go to the Court of Arbitration for Sport for a final verdict.
Several other swimming news outlets reported that Efimova had returned to the United States to continue her training for the Olympic Games, per comments from her agent. But Salo, who used to coach Efimova at the Trojan Swim Club, told SwimSwam this week that the Russian swimmer was not currently training with Trojan.
lol, this is still bs, i saw her at la invite representing trojan
Where is Tonya Harding when you need her?
Yass!!
Free Efymova!
Now we can make her swims swimswam’s blueseventy swim of the week again! She’s very pretty.
she shouldnt even be allowed to swim….
And perhaps FINA can invent a new award for Vladimir Putin that is even more prestigious than the FINA Order, which he has already received…sort of like making him a six-star general of FINA.
Yulia obviously sends men into meltdown.& they see her everywhere
.
In your dreams ..
Meld-down.
Read the opening para Bobo
I just hope somebody beats her come Rio. Two violations is bad news.
Who lies in that story? Efimova’s agent? Dave Salo?
Anyway I’d prefer hear simply and clearly from Mr Salo that he will never train her again and overall will refuse to train former doped swimmers in the future.
Seems like it might be a case of mistaken assumptions somewhere along the line. As far as I can tell, one media outlet reported that Efimova’s agent said she was returning to California – but the agent was never quoted as saying Trojan Swim Club specifically. A different media outlet reported that she would return to Trojan, but didn’t appear to attribute that info to any specific source. We only reported that her ban was lifted until we could get in contact with Coach Salo, and at that point we reported this news.
A confusing run of events, but we’ll keep everyone posted as we learn more!
Thanks Jared about the clarification.
If what I’ve read on another swimming news website is false, then they should be careful in the future before making headlines with unverified information. I remark that swimswam is much more cautious.
Anyway even if Mr Salo tells the truth, he must be much clearer about the doping topic and simply break off all ties with swimmers who have a sulphurous reputation. It’s not very good for the image of American swimming if one of its most famous coaches is not 100% clean himself.
Elfimova is innocent. Bobo, she was guilty the first time and she did her punishment. Second time is a joke and the worst lawyer in the world could win this case.
Anonymous, put the Koolaid down and open your eyes. Anyone taking Meldonium is a doper.
Yep, she’ll be in Rio. The case against her is too flimsy. Right or wrong, like it or not, that’s how it will go down.
Do we really know that Dave Salo is not lying?
And how do we know that Efimova’s agent is lying?
So much assumptions either way.
We need more specificity here. Maybe she’s not training with Trojan swim club but is she training with Dave salo? In other words, is he personally training her?
That’s DR. SALO to you.