Abstract
Background: The Olympic preparation of athletes has been highly influenced by COVID and post-COVID syndrome. As the complex screening of athletes is essential for safe and successful sports, we aimed to repeat the 2019-year sports cardiology screening of the Olympic Swim Team before the Olympics and to compare the results of COVID and non-COVID athletes. Methods: Patient history, electrocardiogram, laboratory tests, body composition analysis, echocardiography, cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPET) were performed. We used time-ranking points to compare swimming performance. Results: From April 2019, we examined 46 elite swimmers (24 ± 4 years). Fourteen swimmers had COVID infection; all cases were mild. During CPET there was no difference in the performance of COVID (male: VO2 max 55 ± 4 vs. 56.5 ± 5 mL/kg/min, p = 0.53; female: VO2 max 54.6 ± 4 vs. 56 ± 5.5 mL/kg/min, p = 0.86) vs. non-COVID athletes (male VO2 max 56.7 ± 5 vs. 55.5 ± 4.5 mL/kg/min, p = 0.50; female 49.6 ± 3 vs. 50.7 ± 2.6 mL/kg/min, p = 0.47) between 2019 and 2021. When comparing the time results of the National Championships, 54.8% of the athletes showed an improvement (p = 0.75). Conclusions: COVID infection with short-term detraining did not affect the performance of well-trained swimmers. According to our results, the COVID pandemic did not impair the effectiveness of the preparation for the Tokyo Olympics.
Highlights
We focused on the cardiac adaptation assessed by echocardiography and sports performance using cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPET) and swimming performance determined by time-ranking points
The athletes’ performance improved by 54.8% from 2019 to 2021 with no regard to COVID-19 status
Our study shows that mildly symptomatic COVID-19 infection did not affect cardiac adaptation or performance in elite swimmers assessed by echocardiography and CPET
Summary
Besides the pre-participation screening exams (history, physical exam, ECG), a detailed athletic screening includes laboratory exam, echocardiography, and cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPET), which is the best way to measure cardiorespiratory fitness and maximal exercise tolerance in a clinical environment [2]. As the complex screening of athletes is essential for safe and successful sports, we aimed to repeat the 2019-year sports cardiology screening of the Olympic Swim Team before the Olympics and to compare the results of COVID and non-COVID athletes. Methods: Patient history, electrocardiogram, laboratory tests, body composition analysis, echocardiography, cardiopulmonary exercise test (CPET) were performed. During CPET there was no difference in the performance of COVID (male: VO2 max ± 4 vs 56.5 ± 5 mL/kg/min, p = 0.53; female: VO2 max 54.6 ± 4 vs ± 5.5 mL/kg/min, p = 0.86) vs non-COVID athletes
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