Canadian athletes fighting stomach illness at Paris Olympics

Some of Canada’s Olympic athletes are fighting through illness, with multiple reports of a stomach bug hitting runners and cyclists. 

Athletics Canada posted on multiple social media platforms Tuesday that sprinter Zoe Sherar “was … fighting a stomach virus prior to competing” in the 400-metre race and failed to advance to the finals, though she is still expected to run in the 4x400m relay Friday.

“It’s definitely created some hurdles,” Sherar told CBC Olympics and Paralympics reporter Devin Heroux.

“But good time to practice resilience and just playing with the cards you’ve been dealt. Each day is getting better and that’s a positive sign, for sure.”

Sherar told Heroux that 10-15 people, including coaches, have been sick but are on the mend. 

Michelle Harrison, a three-time Canadian 100-metre hurdles champion who made the Olympics for the first time this year and said it will also be her last, also fell ill. 

“It’s kind of disappointing to end this way. I had the best training week of my life last week, but unfortunately came down with the stomach flu this weekend and I just don’t have my energy and nervous system back,” she said. 

“But I was just trying to have fun out there and take in the experience and do the best I could. Unfortunately it just wasn’t my day.”

Harrison finished last in her heat Wednesday, but has a second chance on Thursday. 

Sprinter Aaron Brown, after being eliminated from the men’s 200m competition Wednesday, also said he’d been sick before the race, while sprinter Lauren Gale told CBC she had a stomach virus. 

Canadian race walker Evan Dunfee told the Toronto Star he fought through “eight hours of extreme vomiting” before racing last week.

Bacteria caused ‘mini outbreak’ among cyclists

Mike Wilkinson, the Canadian Olympic Committee’s chief medical officer, told CBC News that Canada’s track cycling team had a “mini outbreak” affecting three athletes and three other team members over the past week, but no new infections have been detected in the past 24 hours.

He said the affected athletes were not staying in the Olympic Village.

Four women cycle on a track.
Canada’s Ariane Bonhomme, Erin Attwell, Maggie Coles-Lyster and Sarah van Dam compete in the women’s team pursuit at the 2024 Summer Olympics, Tuesday. Atwell said two members of the team were suffering from a gastrointestinal illness at the Paris Games. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press)

Wilkinson said the cause of the illness was Campylobacter jejuni bacteria, which can be found in water and food, but the source of the bacteria is not yet known. 

“We are able to identify the bacteria and able to treat it very quickly as soon as we identify it,” he said. “Fortunately, what we’ve seen in the cycling group is a bacteria, which we’ve treated and they responded very quickly to antibiotics.” 

Cyclist Erin Attwell told CBC that two members of her team came down with a gastrointestinal issue from “contaminated” hotel food.

No athletes have missed competition

Wilkinson said the team working with Canada’s athletes has been diligent with sanitizing spaces, testing anyone with symptoms and isolating people who are sick. 

He said the sickness that has hit several runners is separate from the bacteria that affected the cyclists. 

“The infections that we know about from track were from in the training camp,” he said. “We’ve had no transmissions or infections in the Olympic Village.”

Wilkinson said there were also several respiratory infections early on among Canadian athletes, including two COVID-19 infections, as people were arriving from training camps and planes, but he hasn’t seen any new ones for several days.

He said every athlete has still been able to compete. 

It’s not uncommon to see illnesses go around at major sporting events.

At the world track and field championships in 2017, Canada moved some of its athletes out of the hotel where they were staying in London, U.K., after nine athletes and staff members fell ill with a stomach bug, and Brown, the sprinter, said he was quarantined after catching norovirus.

At the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games, a norovirus outbreak hit 53 employees of the athletes’ village before athletes arrived.

Alexandra Rendely, a physical medicine and rehab doctor with the University Health Network in Toronto, says it makes sense that illnesses are spreading throughout the Olympics, given how many athletes and spectators are gathered. 

A woman smiles for a photo.
Dr. Alexandra Rendely says dehydration is a key concern for sick athletes at the Olympics, especially considering the heat of the Summer Games. (Dr. Alexandra Rendely)

Mentally, physically and emotionally difficult

Rendely said dehydration is a major concern with stomach illnesses, especially with heat being a factor at the Summer Games. Aside from replacing lost fluids and electrolytes, athletes may have to adjust their sleeping and training schedules to compete as well as they can while they’re sick or recovering. 

“Imagine training your whole life for a single event and all of a sudden you come down with a cold or a flu or COVID or whatever it might be, the day before, the day of or a few days before,” she said. 

“I imagine it is quite difficult mentally, physically and emotionally for these athletes, their physicians and their entire training staff.”

Many athletes at this year’s games have expressed concerns about the Seine River, where several major swimming events are being held, after experts questioned whether it was safe enough to swim in due to the presence of e.coli and other bacteria.

Several athletes have reported stomach illnesses after swimming in the Seine, though none have been confirmed as being caused by the water. A Belgian triathlete who fell ill, causing her team to withdraw from the mixed relay event, said blood tests showed it was a virus, not dirty water, that made her sick.

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