Kirsty Coventry Says Swimmers Should NOT Get Paid — HUGE Backlash!
6/9/202610 min
Kirsty Coventry, Olympic legend and current swimming power player, drops a bombshell: swimming should stay an "amateur sport" and athletes shouldn't get paid. The internet (and Night Swim) lost it.Dax and Elvis go full send on why this is one of the worst takes in recent swimming history:- She's a former swimmer who personally cashed massive checks — including $100K from Robert Mugabe- Now she's pulling the ladder up behind her, telling current athletes to survive on "beautiful venues and experiences" while bills pile up- Cam McEvoy's viral breakdown: Paying every Olympic qualifier appearance fees, performance bonuses, and wo...
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First 90 secondsDax Hill· Host0:00
Sorry for- Speaking of- Go ahead, son ...
Elvis Burrows· Host0:02
speaking of paying athletes, look at this next one.
Dax Hill· Host0:06
[laughs] Oh, my goodness. What a PR nightmare.
Elvis Burrows· Host0:11
Oof.
Dax Hill· Host0:12
So guys, uh, if y'all don't know, Kirsty Coventry said that pretty much all swimming is an amateur sport. She didn't, from what I saw, uh, this is what I saw, right? So this is my opinion. Um, she did not specify whose was what. She just said amateur athletes do not... This is one thing, this is my interpretation and my paraphrasing, should not be paid, and that, in general, swimming as a whole, she didn't, my paraphrasing, differentiate between the pro athlete and the amateur athlete. Pretty much just said just they, swimmers shouldn't be paid. That's what I- Yeah ... gathered from it, so. And, uh, then we had a little, uh, South, you had some African on African crime between, uh, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Uh, [laughs] so, uh, what do you, what do you think about this, Elvis?
Elvis Burrows· Host1:08
I don't, I don't care of the distinction between pro and amateur. She's wrong either way. Like, athlete, anybody, if you're making billions of dollars off of the backs of somebody, that somebody should get a piece, regardless pro am... Like, the pro/amateur debate is just a greedy excuse to keep