- Australian swimmers fought harder than their rivals in the pool
- Dawn Fraser reveals big secret about superstar Kaylee McKeown
It has sensationally been revealed that as many as seven Australian swimmers competed at the Paris Olympics while suffering from Covid, with at least two of them winning medals despite the virus.
The Dolphins finished their swimming campaign with seven gold medals – and 18 podium places in total – to make Paris one of the country’s most successful Games in the pool.
If measured in gold, it is the country’s third-best result in an Olympic pool, behind the nine golds in Tokyo three years ago and the eight golds at the 1956 Melbourne Games.
Swimming legend Dawn Fraser has claimed that “half” of the team may have battled Covid during the campaign.
Freestyle swimmer Lani Pallister claimed relay gold just days after revealing she had Covid, while rising star Ella Ramsay also fell ill with the virus and was forced to withdraw from the 200m medley final.
Breaststroke star Zac Stubblety-Cook also revealed he won silver just four days after contracting Covid.
The identities of the other four swimmers who battled the virus have not been revealed.
“It’s been absolutely fantastic, you know, because half of our swimmers got Covid and the media didn’t know about it and a lot of them swam well because they had it and some of them didn’t,” Fraser told Matty Johns on the show. Matty and the Missile Podcast.
Zac Stubblety-Cook (pictured) battled Covid to take silver in the 200m breaststroke
Lani Pallister (pictured right) won relay gold after a bout of Covid
‘Lani didn’t swim very well in the 800 meters because she was just recovering.
‘But we did very, very well in the pool because as I said, they got COVID the first few days, they were in town and we had to put seven swimmers in hotels to keep them away.
“It’s one of those things that is easy to catch and it’s much more real in the village, it certainly spreads.”
Fraser said pool queen Kaylee McKeown, who won two gold medals, was also likely affected by Covid.
“You have to take your hat off to Kaylee McKeown because she got her medal, she didn’t walk around the pool, she had to walk straight out, go down to the marshals area and swim the next race,” Fraser said.
“And he was very lucky if he was able to attend the whole event because I think he had a touch of Covid.”
Dawn Fraser says pool queen Kaylee McKeown was likely affected by Covid as she set multiple records in Paris
Ahead of the Paris Games, five players on the Australian women’s water polo team also tested positive for Covid.
The Australian Olympic team has its own medical team with in-house testing capabilities in Paris, which has prevented them from relying on services provided in the athletes’ village.
“We’ve been able to get a pretty good idea of what might be happening,” mission chief Anna Meares said at the time.
“This allows our medical team to act very quickly.”