Coco Gauff, who reached the French Open quarterfinal, will not be part of the Tokyo Olympics 2020 due to a positive coronavirus test.
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Coco Gauff, who reached the French Open quarterfinal and the fourth round in Wimbledon, will not be part of the Tokyo Olympics 2020. Gauff, the 17-year-old, has tested positive for the coronavirus. Taking to her social media handle, Gauff tweeted her sadness. Her dream of representing the USA in the Olympics would not happen in this edition. The Olympics tennis event in Tokyo is missing a host of big names. Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Serena Williams, Victoria Azarenka, Angelique Kerber, and Bianca Andreescu are all absent. However, Novak Djokovic and Ashleigh Barty, the Wimbledon 2021 winners, will be playing.
The Tokyo Olympics 2020 has been ravaged by the coronavirus. The event was postponed last year due to COVID-19. Japan has already declared a state of emergency due to the surge in coronavirus cases. In the last 24 hours, the coronavirus cases in Japan have increased by 3886. The death toll has already crossed 15,000. The rate of vaccination in Japan is also low.
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— Coco Gauff (@CocoGauff) July 18, 2021
The Games Organising Committee has announced that three athletes have tested positive for COVID-19. This has added to the concerns surrounding the Olympics which starts on July 23. Two of them were staying at the Olympic Village. With a lot of question marks hanging over the manner in which the Games will be conducted amid the pandemic situation, the latest development will only add to the organisers’ burden. The Tokyo Olympics was postponed last year and is currently being held under strict protocols. Athletes and support staffs need to follow these protocols during their stay in the Japanese capital.
This is the first case of athletes catching the infection while staying in the village. The organisers, however, have not revealed their identities. The third infected athlete is staying at a designated Games hotel, according to reports. The report further adds that a total of 10 cases were detected on the day, including five “Games concerned personnel”, one contractor, and a journalist, according to the COVID-19 Positive Case List uploaded by the OC. According to OC records, the total number of Games-related COVID-19 cases has now gone up to 55.
The organisers, however, did not emphasise whether the two infected athletes, who were staying in the village, would be put under quarantine elsewhere. “Since 1 July more than 18,000 games participants arrived from overseas,” stated Pierre Ducrey, IOC Games Operations Director.
“All of them had at least 2 negative tests before arrival. When they arrived, they had another test. When they are here, there is a strict testing regime in place. The participants of the Olympic Games are the most controlled population in the world.”
Sports Minister Anurag Thakur gave a formal send-off to India’s first batch of the Tokyo Olympics -bound athletes from the Indira Gandhi International Airport. Thakur was accompanied by Minister of State for Sports, Nisith Pramanik, Sports Authority of India Director General Sandip Pradhan, and Indian Olympic Association (IOA) officials, including President Narinder Batra and Secretary General Rajeev Mehta.
IOA president had earlier warned the Tokyo Olympics-bound athletes to be mentally prepared for curbs. The IOA president said there is “no way out” of some “unfair” restrictions that Tokyo Olympics organisers have imposed. He said that athletes should be mentally prepared for anything that is thrown their way.
Batra said the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) is still looking for answers for many questions like athletes’ training and food arrangements during the Games. “We are trying to prepare ourselves mentally according to the present situation. If there are certain situations, we have to live with them, there is no way out,” Batra told PTI in an exclusive interview on Wednesday.
