Sources tell SwimSwam that two U.S. Olympic swimmers, distance specialists David Johnston and Luke Whitlock, have tested positive for COVID-19 in Paris.
The news comes on the heels of British breaststroker Adam Peaty testing positive for COVID-19 on Monday, just hours after tying for silver in the men’s 100 breaststroke and sharing the podium with American Nic Fink.
Sources say that both Johnston and Whitlock have been moved to a hotel to isolate while coaches closely monitor the entire distance group. Whitlock had been staying in an Olympic Village apartment along with Hunter Armstrong, Thomas Heilman, Aaron Shackell, Matt Fallon, and Ivan Puskovitch.
Johnston’s status for his only pool event, the men’s 1500 free, is now up in the air. Fortunately, he’ll have a few days to recover before heats take place on Saturday, August 3rd. However, the prospect of pulling off a pool/open water double and swimming the 10km soon after dealing with COVID-19 seems like a tall task at this point. Johnston was added to the open water roster in late June courtesy of his 1500 free time.
Whitlock is said to be experiencing mild symptoms such as coughing, but the 18-year-old Florida commit (’24) already raced in his only event, placing 15th in the men’s 800 freestyle heats on Monday morning with a time of 7:49.26 — four seconds slower than his personal-best 7:45.19 from last month’s Olympic Trials.
Unlike the past two Olympics, athletes in Paris are not bound by COVID-19 restrictions. A USA Swimming spokesperson told SwimSwam that there is no mandatory masking or testing in place right now for American swimmers.
“We encourage our athletes to do whatever makes them the most comfortable, working with the team doctors,” USA Swimming communications director Jake Grosser said.
As of Tuesday morning, before news of Johnston and Whitlock’s positives broke, at least seven Olympians had tested positive for COVID-19, including Australian swimmer Lani Pallister. Australia also had five members of its women’s water polo team contract COVID-19 before the Olympics even started.
There is no universal policy on athlete participation with COVID-19. The aforementioned Australian women’s water polo team, for example, continued training despite those five positive tests.
Several members of the U.S. team were reportedly already staying in hotels outside of the Village, which could help limit the spread of COVID-19 through the team. While the current strains of the COVID-19 virus generally have more mild symptoms than the strain that gripped the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, it is still dangerous for high-risk populations and can still create long-COVID symptoms, though research on long COVID is still evolving. COVID-19 spreads more easily than the common flu, and even medically-mild symptoms can still impact athletes’ performances at the Olympics.
If Johnston doesn’t start the 1500, he’s not eligible to compete in open water. The “added entries” criteria for OW requires that athletes “start” the 800 or 1500. It doesn’t require that they finish. (I know that seems like a weird distinction in pool swimming, but it’s because of the number of sports in which DNF is more common like skiiing where an athlete is DNF as soon as they miss one gate – so IOC uses “start” rather than “finish.”)
I’ve been told by a reliable source DJ is out of the 1500
Hope Whitlock and Johnston are OK. Really does seem like we’re getting some sort of spreading event of COVID-19 here. Heard from my Finnish friend that 200 breast Tokyo bronze medalist Matti Mattsson contracted the virus.
https://www.is.fi/urheilu/art-2000010595579.html
Slow pool, fast virus
I am a swimmer..retired coach..I had the Covid vaccine..3 of them..yes I got Covid..as did every single person I know..the vaccines really got rolling as Covid was mutating to less severe symptoms..so the cases were milder due to the virus itself? Or the vaccine? Obviously the vaccines did not prevent Covid..my age demographic would be considered high risk..we all trained through mild Covid symptoms..no one got long Covid..but one woman got long flu. There is still so much misinformation on the internet about Covid, that it is hard to make sense of it.
Like many viruses, some people will get sicker than others..some people will cough after a flu for months! That is accepted. Or feel weak after a… Read more »
We sure sacrificed a lot to create the illusion that there hasn’t been unmitigated COVID spread all over the globe this summer. Imagine if the delegations actually had their athletes wear masks as a basic preventative measure. How many more athletes would we have seen at full strength? Humans are ridiculous.
We could clean the air, or allow better ventilation and better airflow. Daily testing, twice a day. No one has to get vaccinated, if they dont want to. Masking should be encouraged.
i thought we knew masks didnt work?
Well that’s just objectively ridiculous.
The virus lives in your saliva. Try spitting wearing an N95 and see how it goes…
This is centuries old knowledge ffs is there any level of stupid right wing populism will not go to?
I didn’t realize just how much of it infected (…) the swimming community. I like imagining they all have the same politics as Braden.
The overwhelming scientific and medical opinion is that masking does help slow the spread of disease, including COVID-19.
Anybody telling you differently is manipulating the evidence, or painting you into a black and white world where they either stopped the spread of every disease every time, or did absolutely no good.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/masks-work-distorting-science-to-dispute-the-evidence-doesnt/
As a swim fan, I’m just really sad. Athletes and fans and parents wait four years for this and it’s just been one thing after another and it’s not stopping
Do we know how many have tested positive across all sports?