Standing up for clean sport is task that can quickly be brushed aside as too time consuming, too risky, and too isolating for athletes in the full swing of their careers. For swimmer and Olympic medalist Lilly King, those reasons pale in comparison to the reason she took a stand for clean sport – because it was the right thing to do.
King became widely known as a clean sport advocate in dramatic fashion when she publicly confronted a competitor with past doping violations at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games. While this move led to both support and criticism from the sporting world, King didn’t let the censure deter her from continuing to take strong and public stands on behalf of clean sport, which included statements at a White House Anti-Doping Summit in October 2018.
Here, King explains how she hopes to inspire and help more active athletes take a stand for clean sport at the peak of their influence in sport.
Video Transcript
I would say definitely my dad probably inspired me the most to kind of stick up for, you know, at least the clean athletes, because he ran track back in the 80s, so when doping was, you know, unbelievably prevalent. So growing up as a kid, I remember sitting and watching a track meter, watching a baseball game, and like picking out people like, “Oh, he’s cheating. He’s cheating. I can tell because, you know, this, this, this, and this, and just, you know, within physical appearance.” So I think it was at a very early age that I recognized that doping was not good.
Deciding that standing up for clean sport was worth it was, you know, I saw some of my roommates in Rio miss out on finals because of dopers, which is something you never ever want to see happen to a teammate and a friend, but yeah, honestly, I was standing up for myself, and that’s how I kind of came into it. I’m not gonna lie, it’s not a super easy path to take; you get a lot of flack for being in the clean sport world, which makes no sense to me personally. Several of us have embraced, you know, convicted dopers in the past, myself included.
It’s changed me that it’s something we don’t really discuss out in the open that much. But I think that’s part of, you know, the athletes are going to choose their own path and this is the path I’ve decided to take, and, and standing up for what’s right is what’s important to me. So that’s the road I’m going to go down.
You know, taking a stand and being involved in clean sport has absolutely not taken away from my career at all; it doesn’t really take any time. You just have to say, “I stand for clean sport, I stand for fair play, and for my fellow athletes who are competing the right way,” and that’s it. It’s a pretty simple, easy thing to do. And I think, yeah, it should be much easier for people to get involved because you don’t—it’s not that hard. You just have to stand up for what’s right and stand up for yourself and your fellow athletes.
My advice to people wanting to get involved with clean sport is to go ahead and do it. You don’t have to make a huge political stand like I did; it’s super easy. Just, you know, you can just contact me, you can contact any of the athletes you know who are involved with the anti-doping movement and clean sport, and you know, on top of that, just showing support for the athletes who are deciding to make the bigger stands, you know—people, you know, like me who were making that stand out of need, or speaking out, or people who are, you know, involved in podium protests as we had last summer, just offering your support to them, and you know, honestly, social media is such a huge tool.
I hope I’ve had a strong impact on the clean sport world. I feel like we haven’t had a lot of females in particular really stand up for themselves. I think we’ve seen a lot more on the male side, but I hope I’m, you know, able to persuade, you know, more female athletes to stand up for themselves and stand up against dopers, because there are just as many female dopers out there as male dopers.
I hope I’ve been able to inspire more athletes to take a stand. I think I also may have made people a little bit more scared to take a stand, just because of, you know, the negative backlash that I received. But, you know, in the end I have to know that I’m in the right and I’m doing the right thing, and that’s all that matters, so I hope other people kind of take my lead and start, you know, showing their support for clean sport as well.
