August 04, (THEWILL) – The coronavirus scourge struck again at the 2020 Tokyo Games ruling the entire artistic swimming squad of Greece out of the team event. This was the fallout from five members of the delegation testing positive for COVID-19 ahead of their participation in the event.
Organisers of Tokyo 2020 confirmed that eight Greek artistic swimmers were effectively ruled out from taking part in the team competition because of the outbreak of cases in their camp, while seven others who were close contacts of those to have tested positive have been placed in an isolation facility outside the Olympic Village.
Although the identities of those to have contracted the novel coronavirus have not been revealed, Masa Takaya, spokesperson for the Tokyo 2020 organisers said: “We proposed to the Greek NOC that the seven should immediately be transferred to a holding facility and they accepted.
“All seven were moved out from the Village yesterday. Their artistic swimmers did not compete in duet events and they are also no longer eligible to participate in the team event.
“We wish them a speedy recovery.”
Updated figures from the organisers reveal that there had been a further 29 confirmed cases of COVID-19 among Olympic participants in Japan since July 1, bringing the total to 327 for the period.
So far, no fewer than 20 athletes have been unable to compete at Tokyo 2020 after testing positive for COVID-19 in the Japanese capital. There have also been cases of athletes ruled out because of a positive test prior to travelling to the Games, like world number one golfer Jon Rahm, for instance.
Out of that total number of confirmed cases, 203 are from Japanese residents and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) have revealed that organisers have carried out more than 514,000 COVID-19 tests between July 1 and August 2, returning a total of 105 positive cases, which comes to a miserly rate of 0.02 per cent in all.
In Tokyo itself, there has been a surge in new COVID-19 infections since the Olympics commenced. However, as the IOC and the organisers themselves have persistently maintained, the coronavirus has not had any significant interference with the events at the Olympics itself.
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Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
