- Murphy says 200m backstroke final ‘probably not clean’
- Russian winner Rylov says: ‘Ryan didn’t accuse me of anything’
A storm broke out at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre on Friday morning when Ryan Murphy, the USA’s silver medallist in the 200m backstroke, spoke out against the sport’s doping problem and said he was “swimming in a race that’s probably not clean”. Almost any other time, this would have been an admirably honest thing to do, but the problem was Murphy had only just lost to Evgeny Rylov, representing the Russian Olympic Committee, and the comments came across as an accusation. Rylov, 24, won both the 100m and 200m backstroke this week, the 200m with an Olympic record time of 1min 53.27sec.
Related: Duncan Scott wins silver in 200m medley as China’s Wang Shun grabs Olympic gold
