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.
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.
