THE COVID FIGHTBACK
McSWEYN’S DESPERATE PLEA FOR HELP TO RECOVER
STEWART McSweyn sought help from the family of Olympic champion Jakob Ingebrigtsen in a desperate bid to find a solution to his Covid nightmare.
Australia’s 1500m star was on the verge of abandoning his Commonwealth Games campaign and going home two months ago as he struggled to run because of an adverse reaction to a Covid booster back in March.
A desperate McSweyn contacted the Ingebrigtsen family, given middle brother Filip had been wiped out with a similar issue last year.
“We got some advice on what they did and just the recovery and stuff to try and get better,” he said.
“They’d worked with the Norwegian team as well and he (Filip) is one of my best mates on the track, so we have got a good relationship.
“For him it prolonged even longer than me, so he pretty much missed the season - that was the Tokyo Olympic year. It pretty much wiped out his whole season.
“He really struggled and had some things similar to me where, like anything hard he would try to do, he just couldn’t recover.”
McSweyn, who was later diagnosed with pericarditis, which is inflammation around the heart, says he is still shaken by the worst period of his career.
“The hard thing is you get so used to what your body can do; in some sense in racing and training you find a level where you kind of have a sense of easiness where you can do stuff comfortably,” he said.
“Obviously I had none of that even doing easier workouts that I should be able to kill, I had none of that.
“And with racing you are never tired by the first lap - but in those early races I was dead 400 or 500 metres into a race, so it was obviously a pretty tough pill to swallow when things aren’t going right.”
After suffering through Diamond League meetings in Doha and Birmingham, McSweyn was on the verge of flying home when he decided to give it one last chance.
“I had nothing (in those races) so I was kind of thinking would I be able to recover? I was tossing up whether I scrap the season and then go home, try and get healthy and get ready for 2023,” he said.
“I eased off training and tried to rebuild up and felt training progressing a little bit, so I thought I might as well go for it as I don’t want to really go back to Australia in winter.
“I might as well at least give it one more crack and see what happens.”
After running well in a 3000m event in Stockholm, the Australian 1500m record-holder continued on to the world championships in Eugene, Oregon, where he managed to make the final, finishing ninth.
“In hindsight, two months ago I would have definitely taken it as there was a chance where I thought I was going home and thought I would not be able to get near racing world champs,” he said.
“I made a lot of progress over those two months, and to be in another world championship final was another good experience.”
McSweyn will be joined by Ollie Hoare - who was a surprise casualty in the heats of the world championships - in the 1500m in Birmingham, which promises to be one of the toughest events on the track.
Five runners from the world championships final are from the Commonwealth, including gold medallist Jake Wightman, who is tossing up whether to run 800m or 1500m.