Hours after the news broke on Monday of more failed drug tests by medal-winning athletes at the 2008 and 2012 Olympics, Shirley Babashoff and two of her 1976 U.S. Olympic relay team members ascended to the stage in the ballroom of a midtown Manhattan hotel to present an award at USA Swimming’s annual Golden Goggles gala.
Babashoff, beaten in three individual events and one relay by East German women later found to have been part of a state-sponsored doping program, stepped to the microphone and said, “Thank you, Lilly King. I don’t know you, but I love you.