PRETORIA: Former Olympic swimming champion Cameron van der Burgh said he has contracted the coronavirus and added his voice to concerns for athletes’ well-being if the Tokyo Games go ahead as scheduled.

Van der Burgh, who retired from competitive swimming in 2018, posted a series of messages on social media on Sunday describing how he had been ill with the virus for two weeks.

“Although the most severe symptoms [extreme fever] have eased, I am still struggling with serious fatigue and a residual cough that I can’t shake,” van der Burgh wrote on his official Twitter account. “Any physical activity like walking leaves me exhausted for hours.”

Van der Burgh wrote that athletes are exposing themselves to unnecessary risk by continuing to train in preparation for the Olympics because there is no clarification on whether the games will go ahead as planned.

“And those [athletes] that do contract [the virus] will try rush back to training most likely enhancing/extending the damage/recovery time,” he wrote.

He ended his thread with: “COVID-19 is no joke!”The 31-year-old van der Burgh won gold at the 2012 London Olympics and silver at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games in the 100-metre breaststroke. He also won six world championship golds, both long and short course. He holds the short course world records in the 50-metre and 100-metre breaststroke.

Van der Burgh is from South Africa but moved to London to work in the finance industry after retiring from swimming.

Published in Dawn, March 24th, 2020