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: VO 2 max 55 ± 4 vs. 56.5 ± 5 mL/kg/min, p = 0.53; female: VO 2 max 54.6 ± 4 vs. 56 ± 5.5 mL/kg/min, p = 0.86) vs. non-COVID athletes (male VO 2 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.
【저자키워드】 COVID-19, Cardiopulmonary exercise test, Swimming, athlete, performance assessment, 【초록키워드】 pandemic, Infection, Cardiopulmonary, Laboratory tests, COVID, male, female, Effectiveness, Mild, body composition, Analysis, Tokyo, Safe, complex, no difference, syndrome, team, performed, examined, not affect, impair, 【제목키워드】 Impact, assessment, performance, Tokyo, preparation, Comprehensive,