Matt Sates Comes Down With Illness At Worlds Staging Camp

2022 FINA WORLD AQUATICS CHAMPIONSHIPS

• June 18-25, 2022 (pool swimming)
• Budapest, Hungary
• Duna Arena
• LCM (50-meter format)
• Meet Central
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• Psych Sheets

We know that 18-year-old Olympian Pieter Coetze of South Africa will no longer be racing at this week’s World Championships, and he’s not the only South African dealing with a health issue headed into the meet.

Matt Sates revealed to SwimSwam that he has been battling illness since the team’s training camp in Turkey and is just now starting to recover from what appears to be an upper respiratory infection, described by his coach Wayne Riddin as a “bad cough.”

“I fell sick in Turkey. I feel like I got a chest infection. I am finishing my antibiotics tomorrow.”

Putting fans’ minds at ease, the former Georgia Bulldog continued, “It’s not a big deal as my taper is focused on the Commonwealth Games. Soooo glad it didn’t happen then.”

Sates had previously said that the Commonwealth Games was his focus meet for the summer, but reiterated that to SwimSwam this week.

That echoed the same sentiments from teammate Coetze who is also targeting Birmingham as his primary summer meet. The two were together at the Mare Nostrum series meets in Europe last month, but afterward Coetze returned to South Africa while Sates headed to Istanbul with coach Tom Rushton’s pro group along with countrymate Lara van Niekerk. That helps limit them, at least, from exposure to Coetze’s COVID-19.

Sates downplayed the impact of the sickness, saying that it “won’t damage or affect my performance and racing in Budapest.”

The multiple FINA World Cup gold medalist is entered in the 200m/400m free, 200m IM/400m IM and 100m fly for Budapest, with the teen’s highest seed represented by his 14th slot in the 200m IM (1:57.60).