World Championships: American Team Struggling With After-Effects of Stomach Illness
Little has gone as planned for the United States team in the run-up to the World Championships and in the opening sessions in Singapore. A gastrointestinal illness decimated the team during the final days of its staging camp in Phuket, Thailand, with symptoms eventually spreading to all but a handful of its members. Some were delayed in making the trip to Singapore, and even once all arrived, many remained in less-than-ideal health.
Now, the racing has begun with the Americans posting results best described as flat, at least compared to what took place at U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis. And in three instances so far, a swimmer’s health has been so poor to prompt withdrawal from an event. Torri Huske skipped the 100 butterfly, the event in which she won Olympic gold last year, to concentrate on the 400 freestyle relay. Claire Weinstein was absent from her lane in the 400 freestyle heats.
In the evening session, the favored U.S. women’s 400 free relay team lost Gretchen Walsh less than an hour before the race started, with Erin Gemmell taking her place. Lineups for finals relays are due well before the start of a session, with changes only allowed in the case of illness. Walsh was on the initial start list, but Gemmell revealed after the race that she had been asked to be ready in case the team needed to make a last-minute change.
“When someone tells you that you’re going to be on a final relay for Team USA, I feel like you sort of ‘lock in’, and you get in the zone,” Gemmell said. “I’m really proud of what I was able to do with that.”
No American men have been forced to withdraw, but the early results have not been great. Luka Mijatovic, the breakout star from Nationals who is the youngest American man to swim at Worlds since Michael Phelps, appeared completely gassed in his heat of the 400 free. He ended up more than 10 seconds behind anyone else and almost 14 seconds behind his best time.
Mijatovic was never a serious medal contender at this meet, but Rex Maurer was, and he did not make the final despite entering with the third-fastest time in the world. His performance from U.S. Nationals would have been sufficient for fourth place. In other day-one individual events, the 100 breaststroke and 50 butterfly, all Americans reached the semifinal round but only one (Josh Matheny in the 100 breast) made it through to the final.
But credit the Americans for maintaining the positive mentality needed to get through any eight-day championship meet, let alone one where a team is facing massive adversity. Only such an intentional attitude plus further recovery time can give the Americans a chance to right the ship and post better performances during the latter stages of the meet.
“I think the team definitely had to be adaptable and resilient, and for us to still post a solid time and put together really good splits is something that we can be really proud of, given the circumstances we’ve had to deal with,” Simone Manuel said.
At night, when Huske finally made it into the competition pool, she tried to bring the American women into gold-medal position, only to falter on the back half as her days struggling with illness took their toll. Olivia Wunsch was more than a half-second quicker than Huske on the last length as Australia continued its long winning streak in the event. Huske’s split was 52.94, considerably behind her 52.43 flat-start time from Nationals and her best-ever split of 51.88 from last summer’s Olympics, and the Americans settled for silver.
“I mean, I definitely tried my best. I just did the best I could to put together the race I could. And even though it was maybe not the outcome I quite wanted, I’m still proud of the fact that I was able to show up and do what I could,” Huske said. “I feel like we’ve done a really good job, like Simone said, just staying resilient and staying really positive and kind of just rolling with whatever comes our way.”
