Two-time pole vault champion of the United States of America Sam Kendricks (2017, 2019) was forced to forfeit the Tokyo Olympics after testing positive for SARS-CoV-2. “We are sad to confirm that Sam Kendricks has tested positive for Covid-19 and will not be able to compete in the Tokyo Olympics”, announced, Thursday, July 29, the Olympic and Paralympic Committee of the United States (USOPC) on Twitter, on the eve of the start of the athletics events of the Games and two days before the pole vault qualifying, on Saturday.
The American, bronze medalist at the Olympic Games in Rio in 2016, has been placed in solitary confinement in a hotel, said the USOPC, the Olympic and Paralympic committee of the United States.
Shortly after the news of Sam Kendricks’ positive case, Athletics Australia, the Australian Athletics Federation, announced the isolation of three athletes from its delegation as contact cases of the American pole vaulter. The rest of the team, also in isolation for a while, were finally allowed out – the tests carried out did not reveal any cases of Covid-19.
“All three members will be tested every day. They will have the right to train, under strict protocols that restrict their contact with others. At this stage, all the athletes will take part in the competitions as planned ”, specifies the Australian federation in a press release.
The free way for Armand Duplantis
Even if he had been supplanted in recent months by Armand Duplantis, who had gained momentum and became the world record holder for the specialty in 2020 (6.18 m), Sam Kendricks, 28, could use his solid experience to attempting to titillate the Swedish prodigy, 21, and was one of the big favorites to clinch at least one podium at the Olympics. With a jump to 5.92 m, the American signed the second world performance of the year outdoors, tied with his compatriot Chris Nilsen and Frenchman Renaud Lavillenie.
The defection of Sam Kendricks leaves the way even freer to Armand Duplantis, the only one to have crossed a bar at more than 6 meters in 2021 in the open air (6.10 m, on June 6 in Hengelo) and who will try to obtain in Tokyo the biggest title of his young career after two continental gold medals (in 2018 outdoors in Berlin and in 2021 indoors in Torun).
The French Renaud Lavillenie, 2012 Olympic champion and former world record holder, arrived in Japan with a reduced weight, victim of a sprained left ankle on July 11.
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