Australian swimming legend Dawn Fraser revealed on a podcast this week that at least seven swimmers on the Australian team tested positive for COVID-19 during the first week of the Olympic Games, which was kept under wraps by Australian officials.
Speaking to the Matty & The Missile podcast hosted by former rugby player Matty Johns and three-time Olympic swimming medalist James Magnussen, Fraser lauded the team’s performance in spite of the health challenges.
“It has been absolutely fantastic you know, because half of our swimmers got covid and it wasn’t known to the media,” Fraser said.
“They got covid the first couple of days they were in the village and we had to put seven swimmers in hotels to keep them away from it.”
Swimming officials say that swimmers were isolated in the Athletes’ Village but not in external hotels.
“I really take my hat off to some of those young people because they really got 1000 per cent. Because I knew some of them had covid and it was spreading around the village like that. “They had to move some of our swimmers out and get rid of the paper bed … just crazy.”
Zac Stubblety-Cook revealed that he tested positive for COVID four days before winning a silver medal in the 200 breaststroke. He won gold in that event in 2020. He said that he had a lot of fatigue and shortness of breath, but that a quick reaction and treatment by the Australian Olympic Committee medical staff reacted quickly to minimize the impact on his performance.
According to the AAP, The AOC’s chief medical officer said that they ran 84 PCR tests in the Athletes’ village and about half were positive for some respiratory illness – including COVID and Influenza A.
Zac Stubblety-Cook (photo: Jack Spitser)
Lani Pallister also missed heats of the women’s 1500 free with COVID-19, though she was able to return to racing and win a gold medal as part of Australia’s 800 free relay.
Several other non-Australian swimmers also announced positive tests for COVID-19, including 100 breaststroke silver medalist Adam Peaty, and Americans David Johnston, Luke Whitlock, and Blake Pieroni.
At least five members of the Australian Olympic women’s water polo team tested positive for COVID before the meet. In spite of that, they finished atop Group A and earned a top seed into the knockout stage of the tournament, which begins on Tuesday.
There are no universal COVID protocols at the Paris Olympics and athletes are not required to miss competition after a positive test. Later in the meet, after a number of positive tests, more athletes were seen wearing masks in the ready room before their races.
Also on their podcast in the last week, Magnussen lamented the recruiting power of Australian Rules Football and rugby taking all of the best male athletes away from the pool.
Listen to the episode below.
Unfortunately respiratory viruses do this…rhinovirus, coronavirus, adenovirus, parainfluenza, etc etc. Hard to avoid them.
Easy to avoid them with a high quality mask. I went from 3-5 colds per year to none since January 2020.
Anecdotally I haven’t gotten any respiratory illness since 2021 either and I haven’t masked since then.
Might just be a stronger immune system with all the covid my body fought. Who knows.
Science knows
Interesting comments when I doubt that Australia was the only country to keep COVID cases under wraps and still have swimmers competing if they were physically able to
Question for all of our Aussie friends: Can a male athlete make more money and win more renown in rugby and Aussie Rules Football than he can in swimming? I’m surprised to read Magnussen’s comments that those sports are poaching athletes away from the pool.
the average person in the street could name over 100 football stars (either rugby league or Aussie Rules depending on their state) and they can probably name around 2 swimmers. They would not recognise the swimmers in the street.
Most Aussies could walk past Kaylee, Mollie and Ariarne without recognising them. They may recognise Kyle.
Simple answer – about 20 times more money in football. Or more.
About 20 times more money in football. Or more
The average swimmer gets paid basically minimum wage to swim, and that’s only if they make an international team. If not, they get paid nothing.
The average AFL player salary last year was $441,000.
There are 26 spots on the men’s swimming team every year. There are 800 spots available in AFL every year.
For 800000th time, swimming is not a big sport in Australia. Only idiots who have never been to Australia keep saying it is.
Just think about the difference in pay between NFL/NBA/MLB and swimming in the US. Then you’ve got your answer.
It’ll be less than that given the frankly absurd amount of money in US professional sport but it’s a similar magnitude and the comparison should get the point across.
Swimming might be more popular, if it were more inclusive, but if it were more inclusive it would be more competitive. If it were more competitive then many of the elites with their private lessons and private pools would be splashed out by real athletes. There is the rub, a bunch of rich kids sittin’ on it. Many sports are like that.
I played basketball growing up. A money sport where even middle and high school games draw crowds and sell tickets. That is a much different experience. Some good, some bad. Swimming, parents pay everything, not getting much respect here.
Covid = Flu. Not difficult at this point.
Let’s pretend the initial premise is correct (it’s not, COVID is still deadlier than the flu, though the current prevailing strains are much less deadly than the strains in the height of the pandemic).
How would you feel if you got the flu at the biggest meet of your life that you had been training for 15 years for?
Happened to a friend who was in position to medal. It’s been a few decades and their answer is the worst pain they’ve ever experienced that didn’t involve a funeral.
I don’t understand how the same comment section that acted like the sky was falling because the U.S. men didn’t win a gold medal until the last day of the meet and watched multiple people lose golds or bronzes by thousandths or hundredths of a second can say “it’s just the flu” with a straight face. Anyone who was a high level athlete knows what a difference feeling slightly run down makes, never mind struggling to breathe.
Considering I got post viral syndrome from getting the flu at a meet almost 2 years ago and still can’t function at more than 30% capacity, I don’t think it really matters what it is. It can wreck healthy top athletes regardless.
Yes, a quick reaction does mean they reacted quickly..
Really immoral to put personal pursuit of medals over the health and safety of other athletes and people staffing the Games. Extremely disappointing.
lol
I think every team did it..
Oh just covid, sheez
Got me nervous there
I read that headline thinking…you know
“which was kept under wraps by Australian officials”….. and we’re supposed to be okay with this?