The South African football team may not be complete for its July 21 match against Japan, opening the Olympic tournament. The Tokyo Olympic Games (OG) organizing committee identified, Monday, July 19, 21 people who had been in contact with the players of this training, Thabiso Monyane and Kamohelo Mahlatsi and his video analyst, Mario Masha, tested positive the day before. at Covid-19.
The three were placed in solitary confinement in a hotel. Contact cases, which include other team members, have undergone testing and will need to “Eat in their room, train separately and take separate transport”, explained Pierre Ducrey, deputy director of the Olympic Games within the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The players will undergo a test six hours before the game against Japan, the result of which will determine their presence on the pitch.
These announcements five days before the opening ceremony question the effectiveness of the preventive measures put in place to avoid the appearance of a source of contamination. Since July 1, the IOC has already recorded 58 cases among 18,000 athletes, support staff, officials, technicians and journalists who arrived in Japan. This total does not include people who tested positive during training camps, as they are not under the “Jurisdiction” of the organizing committee.
The South African Olympic Committee has announced that the coach of its Sevens rugby team, Neil Powell – who was vaccinated in May and arrived in Japan with a negative test result – had tested positive while in camp training session in Kagoshima, southwestern Japan. Placed in isolation, he will miss the entire tournament. In June, several Ugandan athletes tested positive upon arrival in Japan.
The IOC also confirmed that one of its members, the South Korean Seung Min-ryu, had tested positive on his arrival in the archipelago. And six British athletes are in quarantine for coming into contact with someone who tested positive.
53,000 participants expected
These developments come as IOC President Thomas Bach assured on July 17 that the positive cases “Would not present any risk to other participants and the Japanese people”, while calling for people to stop worrying about prevention measures. “It is inevitable that we have cases”, recognized Christophe Dubi, director of the Olympic Games at the IOC, for whom “Everything is in place to limit the mixing of populations” and “Maintain the risk” chain contaminations “At an absolute minimum”.
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