"My body has just been fragile"- Gretchen Walsh opens up on health struggles from food poisoning after World Championships 100m fly win

US swimmer Gretchen Walsh made her feelings known about her health struggles after clinching her first gold medal in the 100m Butterfly event at the World Aquatics Championships 2025. The Tennessee native registered 54.73 seconds in the finals of the event.

However, an even more impressive fact about her victory was that she did it while not being 100 percent fit. She faced food poisoning issues during her and Team USA's time at the practice window in Phuket, Thailand, just a few days before the competition commenced. Walsh also didn't compete in the 4x100m free relays for her team on the first day of the competition, and just raced her 100m butterfly heats and semis.

Speaking about this illness after her victory on the second day, Walsh said that her body had been a bit fragile for the last few days. Additionally, Walsh also mentioned that the brief period in the morning helped her recover a lot after the heats on the first day.

"With the illness that’s been going on, I faced it back the last couple days, my body has just been fragile, and I think that I’ve needed to give myself grace. Luckily, I had the morning to recover and rest, and I used that, and that helped me enormously going into tonight, so I tried to make the most of it,” she said (via SwimSwam).

Gretchen Walsh is next up to compete in the 100m freestyle event, scheduled to take place on July 31. She will also be seen in the 50m butterfly and 50m freestyle races following that.

Gretchen Walsh comments on what motivated her to do well in the 100m fly finals even after bearing an illness

Gretchen Walsh (Image via: Getty)

Gretchen Walsh explained her motivation behind doing well in the 100m butterfly finals despite her illness. Notably, this was also Walsh's first individual gold medal of her career in this competition; she had won a 4x100m medley gold medal in 2023.

Speaking after her race, Walsh said that she wanted to do well for her team and the US national flag. She further expressed her happiness about the victory and further added (via SwimSwam):

"It took a lot of guts. I think I just wanted to go out here and do it for my team. Represent the flag well and I think that race just… It came out of somewhere. But I’m really, really happy.”

Gretchen Walsh also remarked in her interview that she does a lot of meditation and breathing exercises to counter her anxiety ahead of these big meets.