While most Russian swimmers are actively preparing for the Spartakiad, Yulia Efimova continues to stay in the US and does not plan to compete until the end of the summer season.

Moreover, the six-time world champion has not yet decided whether she will continue her career at all under the sanctions imposed on domestic sports.

In social networks, the brassista regularly publishes spectacular photos from her vacation - either she poses in a bikini on the beach, or on a stone near the famous Bernie Falls, or in a stunning dress in Hollywood.

It seems that all these pleasant entertainments and activities are gradually replacing sports from the life of the Russian swimming legend.

Efimova has not competed since last November, when she won a gold and two silver medals at the Russian Short Course Championships in St. Petersburg.

She refused to participate in the winter world championship.

According to the head coach of the national team Sergei Chepik, Yulia did not want to go to the competition without her father and mentor Andrei Efimov.

At the same time, the titled athlete was preparing for the world championship in Budapest, but he passed without the Russians.

In an interview with Match TV, Efimova admitted that she was now experiencing an emotional swing and did not know what to do next.

“I’ve already changed my mind a hundred times, I thought: well, that’s it, I quit.

And then: I'll quit now, and it'll all be over.

These are the mood swings.

What stopped me from ending my career was that I wanted to end it on a high note.

So it will be psychologically easier for me to say goodbye beautifully and leave.

But now there is no such desire.

While waiting for a decision on our admission, and then we'll see.

If they let me compete at international competitions, I'm ready.

Competing just in the championship of Russia is not very suitable for me, ”said the 30-year-old swimmer.

At the same time, Yulia does not abandon training, although she has reduced the load.

She goes to the track five or six times a week and swims 3.5-4 km.

In addition, the girl tried herself in dancing to keep fit, and was delighted.

“Unusual feeling.

You come and do not die, there are forces for other activities.

I did not expect this from myself!

I have long wanted to try, and only by the age of 30 I managed to go dancing.

There will be salsa!

— said the Russian.

In the absence of Efimova, the main star of the Russian breaststroke has become the young Evgenia Chikunova, who at the recent Friendship Games in Kazan showed a better time in the 200m than the American Lilly King in Budapest.

And, according to coach Vitta Novozhilova, she plans to break not only the Russian record, which has been owned by Efimova since 2013, but also the highest world achievement.

At the same time, she is not afraid of the competition of the eminent compatriot and would love to fight her on the track. 

“That would be great for the two of us.

If she came up in great shape, she would be here - I'm always glad of the competition.

It would be great,” said Chikunova in the capital of Tatarstan.

The 17-year-old brassista has already beaten Efimova, including at the Tokyo Olympics, after which she hastened to be proclaimed the new queen of breaststroke.

But I want to believe that the multiple medalist of the Games has not yet said the last word in sports.

“I would have won in London, I immediately calmed down”

Efimova's career is a continuous story of overcoming.

She was born in Grozny, and with the outbreak of the military conflict in Chechnya, her family moved to Volgodonsk.

The father of the future star worked as a swimming coach and often took his daughter with him to the pool.

He saw in her serious inclinations.

After Julia fulfilled the standard of a master of sports at the age of 12, I decided to look after her with another mentor.

The choice fell on Irina Vyatchanina, and Efimova moved to Taganrog.

It was under her leadership that the girl achieved her first high-profile success in swimming.

“At that time I was completely unprepared to accept it.

In my group there were boys much older and of a completely different level.

But I took this girl, realizing that she needed to be given warmth.

And she gave - she spent the night with me, we ate from the same plate, slept in the same bed, because there was nowhere else to lay, ”the coach recalled in an interview.

In 2007, 15-year-old Efimova won three golds at the European Short Course Championship, and a few months later, gold and two silvers at the continental championship in the 50-meter pool and was selected for the national team for the Beijing Olympics.

But shortly before the start, she fell ill with a sore throat, which gave a complication to the kidneys.

“We were no longer allowed to take any medicines, we managed to pull out Yulka with some kind of Chinese or Mexican salt, which the then team doctor got for us,” Vyatchanina shared.

As a result, in Beijing, Efimova stopped a step away from the podium in the 100-meter breaststroke, and at a distance twice as long she became fifth.

And already in 2009, the athlete brought Russia the first gold medal in the history of the world championships, winning the 50 m swim.

Then Efimova decided to move to the USA and since 2011 she began to train with the famous specialist David Salo.

The Olympics in London did not turn out too well for the Russian woman - primarily because of an allergy that suddenly broke out.

“We settled in the Olympic village, two days before the first swims, and I have huge ears, my whole body is on fire, it only gets worse in the water.

She came out of the pool all red, swollen.

The day before the competition, she contacted the IOC medical service.

They gave me an injection with an antihistamine.

He was terribly sleepy.

As a result, I just overslept the last training session before the competition.

The medicine didn't help at all.

It actually reached Quincke's edema.

They made another injection.

And only after it it became easier, ”the athlete recalled.

As a result, she did not even make it to the final in the 100 meters, and in the 200 she became the third.

At that time, this was a strong blow for the athlete, but a few years later she was even glad about how everything turned out.

“If I won gold in London, I would immediately calm down, get married, give birth to children and miss out on many wonderful sporting moments,” Efimova laughed.

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Scandals and returns

She partially rehabilitated herself in 2013, winning two golds at the World Championships and setting two world records at fifty dollars along the way.

And then came the doping scandal.

In the out-of-competition sample of the Russian woman, the steroid hormone dehydroepiandrosterone was found.

According to the swimmer, the cause was a contaminated dietary supplement.

Efimova was suspended from sports for 16 months and deprived of five medals of the European championship in short water.

A long downtime did not greatly affect the result of the athlete: less than six months after leaving the disqualification, Efimova won the fourth World Cup gold in her career.

That tournament was held in Kazan, and Yulia became the only athlete in the national team who was able to win at home.

But already a few months later, Efimova was again found to have a banned substance - meldonium, which was added to the list of banned substances only in January 2016.

The multiple world champion had to serve a four-month suspension, but the difficulties in her preparation for the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro did not end there.

At first, the coach refused her.

As Efimova herself says, the leadership of the American Federation put pressure on him.

In addition, at that time, a scandal was already raging with might and main, connected with the allegedly state system of doping in Russia.

Just a few weeks before the start of the Games, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) refused to allow Russian athletes who had ever violated WADA rules.

Among them was Efimova.

However, the athlete did not accept this and turned to CAS, which eventually sided with her.

The Russian woman went to the start and, in spite of everything, won the silver medal.

She later admits that it was like a miracle.

“I can’t express in words the feelings that preceded this Olympics.

The two weeks we waited for the admission decision were terrible.

There is nothing worse than uncertainty and anticipation.

No matter how hard I tried, my emotions greatly influenced the result, ”said Efimova.

But even this situation could not unsettle the athlete.

She continued her victorious march at the World Championships, adding one more gold to her piggy bank in 2017 and 2019.

To date, Efimova is the record holder for the number of medals from world championships among all domestic athletes competing in swimming in the pool - six gold, seven silver and four bronze.

Even the legendary Alexander Popov has less.

The only award that is still not in the collection of Efimova is the gold of the Olympic Games.

And, perhaps, this is the only thread that still keeps her from ending her career.