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.
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.
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.
Do we know how many have tested positive across all sports?
And now Romania’s Vlad Stancu has tested positive. This thing is everywhere
I think we can assume this is just the tip of the iceberg and it will get worse. How much worse is the question at this point.
If I’m an athlete that hasn’t competed yet and have the financial means or my country has the financial means, I would be looking to get out of the village into a more private accommodation as soon as possible.
It was at the Tour de France too a few weeks ago so not surprised it is still lingering.
A question someone needs to ask at some point is with the world that we live in now and covid being so easily transmittable of, does the Olympic village make sense?
Maybe housing all of the athletes together and close quarters is not the best idea in the world.
Or at the very least there need to be certain precautions taken to lessen the risk of exposure.
I got downvoted significantly for expressing discomfort with the way the zeitgeist was pretending COVID no longer existed after Weitziel revealed she was sick at Trials.
For a multitude of reasons the issue was swept to the side and as a result society has been blindslided by the recent surge. With that larger context in mind I’m not sure how much a difference any other aproach short of a full on bubble would have made. I think the timing was just extremely unlucky
Flu and other illnesses have been around before. The Olympic village is and has been part of the Olympics for some time so I don’t think it should be eliminated, but some people might want to solve their own accommodations (and a few has).
I wonder if Katie Ledecky has COVID. Her swims have been underwhelming. She went faster at Trials in the 1500. She NEVER just takes prelims easy as shown with a 15:39 at prelims of Trials. She is 8 seconds slower than that here.
I think she went almost the exact same time as the prelims two years ago at world championship.
The pool sucks, and it has more of an effect the longer the race. Everyone’s times are below expectations. I thought she looked good this morning.
I’ve wondered about her performances so far as well. She’s still the GOAT, but her times have been slow by her recent standards. Hopefully she fixes whatever is wrong, and she isn’t sick.
Nah, she’s just getting older.
I hope Dressel is not staying at the Olympic village. I don’t think he is.
Perhaps sick swimmers could be another reason why it’s a “slow pool”
Part of me has to think that olympic swimmers are reading all the slow pool propaganda and this affects their mentality
Both for sure. The Olympics are more of a test of mental fortitude than actual physical capability. Almost every event has been decided by less than a second, and that separation is mostly due to who could give absolutely everything in finals.
why are we even testing covid anymore this is ridiculous
Because they’re sick. And the teams want to know how to treat the sickness so they can get them back in the water ASAP and/or prevent their teammates from being sick.
Basic medicine wasn’t controversial before 2020.
There is a strongly growing body of evidence that even symptomatically mild cases can cause long-term vascular, pulmonary and neurological issues in some people, and the research has shown that physical exercise during COVID can significantly increase risk of Long COVID which can be very debilitating for people.
I know a lot of people don’t want to confront these realities, it’s not fun and it just sucks that we have to deal with this, but facts don’t care about feelings.
Because it’s an infectious disease and we’d rather not have everyone else in the competition get sick?
Not as ridiculous as your comment/ignorance
Is it ridiculous to test for the flu?
Are we announcing the outcome of every medical test and Dr visit? Let’s be consistent.
Apples to oranges. We’re talking about an infectious disease here that spreads very easily. Anyone who has been in contact with those testing positive should be informed so they can also look for symptoms.
My comment about testing for the flu was irony as a response to testing for Covid in general (not pertaining to the Olympics persa). If we stop testing for Covid, should we also stop testing for everything else?
Have you never gone to the doctor? They probably test them for strep too if not more.