World Champion Boglarka Kapas Reveals Hashimoto’s Diagnosis

2020 HUNGARIAN SWIMMING C’SHIPS

• Tuesday, December 8th – Saturday, December 12th
• Ferenc Csik Swimming Pool, Kaposvár, Hungary
• Prelims – 5:00 pm local (11:00 am EST)/Finals – 9:30 am local (3:30 am EST)
• LCM (50m)
• Start Lists
• SwimSwam Preview
• Day 1 Prelims Recap/Day 1 Finals Recap
• Day 2 Prelims Recap
• Results
• Live Stream

World champion Boglarka Kapas set out to compete at these 2020 Hungarian Championships, even getting in the water for the 2oom fly prelims before dropping out of the final.

However, the 27-year-old said she had been feeling ill, prompting her to withdraw from that day’s race. “Unfortunately, I got sick shortly before the race started. This condition lasts for a week and a half, sometimes capturing dizziness, nausea, and then again everything returns to normal,” the NY Breaker ISL team member said.

Then last night, Kapas also withdrew from the women’s 400m free prelims. As a reminder, the prelims are being held in the evening, with finals in the morning to mimic timing in Tokyo 2020.

Subsequently, Kapas posted via social media and confirmed to SwimSwam that over this past summer she indeed had previously been diagnosed with Hashimoto’s disease.

Per the Mayo Clinic, ‘Hashimoto’s disease is an autoimmune disorder in which your immune system creates antibodies that damage your thyroid gland.’

‘Hashimoto’s disease typically progresses slowly over years and causes chronic thyroid damage, leading to a drop in thyroid hormone levels in your blood. The signs and symptoms are mainly those of an underactive thyroid gland (hypothyroidism) and include fatigue and sluggishness, muscle aches, tenderness and stiffness, muscle weakness, depression, among many others.

As for Kapas, she told me ‘in the last 2 weeks I felt dizzy for 3-4 times and really bad like I was going to faint.’ She also said that she is currently not taking medication but this could be a course of action in the future to help manage the chronic disease.

She communicated the following candidly today, December 10th via Instagram as well, indicating that she still has intentions on competing here in Kaposvár.

“Hi! This year is very difficult for everyone, there are many obstacles ahead of us. Unfortunately I had to miss today’s final race on 200 butterflies, that’s why they like to write to you now. I managed to swim quite an encouraging time in the pre-race, but I didn’t feel good before the start today and although it was a very difficult decision, I finally understood that health comes first always. This summer, I was diagnosed with an autoimmune thyroid disease called Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, which can have symptoms like what I felt several times before the start and in the last week and a half. Nevertheless, I am not traveling home yet, I am confident that I will be better, because I really want to compete here in Kaposvár in the National Championship. Take great care of yourself!”