Dear ESPN: Nobody Cares About Your Lilly King Criticism!

Yesterday, ESPN W writer D'Arcy Maine criticized Lilly King's sportsmanship after winning the Gold Medal. Thankfully, I'm here to say why that writer is wrong and Lilly King did exactly what she needed to do.

Lilly King now infamously waved her finger at Russian swimmer Yulia Efimova after the semi-finals on Sunday. This put the internet into a frenzy as memes were created almost immediately. The reason for the finger-wave was aimed at Efimova's doping violations. After King won the Gold Medal, she once again waved her finger at her rival and in her interview, mentioned how she was able to win while "doing it clean."

Why is this bad sportsmanship? If I were to work hard at whatever it is that I was trying to accomplish, and someone else was taking shortcuts, are we supposed to just let it slide? If anything, the Olympics committee allowing someone with a history of doping to compete is who should be put on blast, not the person pointing it out.

Also, I'm sure NBC and the other networks didn't mind having a little bit of trash-talk leading into the final on Monday night. I use the term "trash-talk" loosely as King wasn't saying anything that wasn't true. It wasn't a Connor McGregor level of verbal evisceration. She waved her finger. Big deal.

Had King lost, what would the story have been then? That the "playground bully" mentality of King was thwarted by Russia's unjust victim? The entire article by Maine seems only to exist to nitpick someone who won a Gold Medal for America just because they did something that they personally didn't approve of.

I have no doubt that the doping scandal with Efimova motivated King to swim harder and prove a point: That swimming at the highest level can be achieved without the shortcuts of drugs. Not only does that give her personal motivation, but it also serves to inspire tons of aspiring athletes in the USA (and around the world) that hard work and motivation can pay off. Perhaps someone who was thinking of taking a shortcut by using steroids will rethink that decision after King proved that it could be done the right way.

Overall, the article criticizing King is bogus and serves only as clickbait. The article also left out that for two glorious nights we got a real-life version of Rocky IV. And who in their right mind can dislike that? Lilly King is an Olympic Gold Medalist, which means that, in the immortal words of the great philosopher Taylor Swift, that "haters are gonna hate hate hate." That doesn't mean you have to buy into it. Congrats, Lilly!

Leave your own comments for D'Arcy Maine, ESPNW writer, right here.