By Keith Dunlap on SwimSwam
Canadian swimmer Kylie Masse shed some additional light on the virus that impacted so many at the World Championships and also gave her perspective on the controversy surrounding the American team.
Appearing with former Canadian Olympian Brittany MacLean Campbell (member of Canada’s bronze medal-winning team in the 4×200 free relay at the 2016 Rio Games) on a CBC Sports YouTube show called “The Ready Room,” Masse first talked about the “acute gastroenteritis” virus that plagued the U.S. team and others in Singapore.
Masse said the whole virus situation was “crazier than COVID was,” while at the same time lauding her Canadian team for staying relatively healthy.
“It was not easy,” Masse said. “Continuing to be aware of who you are around and what you are doing at the pool, away from the pool and in the hotel. Obviously, teams are sharing hotels. Everybody is eating the same buffet. Not like a (Olympic) Games style where everybody is together, but there were multiple different hotels where different teams were at together. Just being extra extra cautious of your personal hygiene and trying to do anything that you could to continue to stay healthy throughout the meet.”
Masse said if there was a silver lining, it was how athletes demonstrated their toughness by swimming through such adverse circumstances.
“There’s always something going around,” she said. “There’s people dealing with things—sickness and injuries — that are sometimes spoken about and sometimes not. And I feel like it was almost cool for the world to see that this was going on, but people were still able to get up and manage this and manage their illness, or manage their injury and be able to put together some really, really amazing performances.”
Masse also spoke on the show about the situation with the American team throughout the event.
Ryan Lochte and Michael Phelps took to social media to not only express their disappointment with the results by the American team. Commentator Rowdy Gaines also criticized USA Swimming’s leadership and performance issues in Singapore.
The U.S. did leave with the most overall (29) and gold medals (9), but the thoughts of Gaines, Lochte and Phelps continued a period of adversity for USA Swimming, which is still searching for a permanent CEO and trying to boost membership numbers.
Masse said she never got a negative vibe from the Americans on the deck.
“I feel like they constantly showed up with purpose and with drive no matter what the situation was,” she said. “That was something I actually noticed a number of times. I was just like, ‘Wow, you would never know what’s happening if I didn’t look online, because no one was talking about it either.”
Masse won a bronze medal as part of Canada’s 4×100 mixed medley relay team and was 4th in the women’s 100 back.
Read the full story on SwimSwam: Canadian Kylie Masse Sheds More Light On Virus, U.S. Performance From World Championships
