EFIMOVA Yuliya

General
OLYMPIC MOTIVATION
She has said that adding an Olympic gold medal to her six world championship golds provides the biggest motivation for her to carry on competing in swimming. "I am staying in swimming for one thing, an Olympic gold medal. I still don't have it. If I had won it in 2008, 2012 or 2016, I probably would not have stayed in swimming for such a long time. It's the only thing that keeps me going. It is difficult, physically and morally, to keep going. Sometimes you think, 'Why am I doing this?' But these doubts happen rarely." (sports.ru, 07 Oct 2019)

SANCTION
In late 2013 she tested positive for the banned substance dehydroepiandrosterone [DHEA] at an out-of-competition test. She claimed she unknowingly allowed the substance to enter her body through a supplement she purchased in the United States of America. The supplement did include DHEA on the label of the product, but she claimed her lack of English skills and previous use of a similar supplement that did not contain DHEA contributed to her taking the product. In May 2014 a FINA doping panel found she had been negligent in failing to read the label of the product but that "subjective considerations unique to her situation [did] justify evaluating her fault at a lower level". She was subsequently suspended from competition for 16 months from 31 October 2013 to 28 February 2015, with all results obtained during this period disqualified. (fina.org, 12 May 2014; swimmingworldmagazine.com, 13 May 2014; tas-cas.org, 04 Aug 2016)

She became the first female swimmer representing the Russian Federation to win two medals at a single edition of the Olympic Games when she claimed silver in both the 100m and 200m breaststroke at the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. In addition to her bronze medal from the 2012 Games in London, the two medals she won at the 2016 Games made her the first female swimmer representing the Russian Federation to win three Olympic medals. (SportsDeskOnline, 14 May 2021)

At the 2017 World Championships in Budapest, Hungary, the gold medal she won in the 200m breaststroke was her 12th world championship medal. It meant she had won more career world championship medals than any other swimmer representing the Russian Federation, moving her one clear of Aleksandr Popov. She went on to win two more medals at the 2017 world championships and a further three at the 2019 World Championships in Gwangju, Republic of Korea, taking her overall tally to 17. (SportsDeskOnline, 14 May 2021; teamrussia.pro, 30 Jul 2019)

Her gold in the 200m breaststroke at the 2019 world championships saw her equal Aleksandr Popov's record of six world championship gold medals in swimming for the Russian Federation. (SportsDeskOnline, 14 May 2021; teamrussia.pro, 30 Jul 2019)

She became the first female swimmer representing the Russian Federation to win a world title when she won gold in the 50m breaststroke at the 2009 World Championships in Rome, Italy. (SportsDeskOnline, 14 May 2021; teamrussia.pro, 30 Jul 2019)