The president of the Paris 2024 Olympics organizing committee, Tony Estanguet, will not attend the 2022 Olympics in Beijing, which take place from February 4 to 20. The former canoe specialist was diagnosed with the new coronavirus, announced Monday January 31 Paris 2024 to Agence France-Presse.
Tony Estanguet, whose state of health has not been specified, was to come to the Chinese capital during the first part of the 2022 Olympics – the last before those organized by the French capital – which begin on Friday. According to Paris 2024, the director general of the organizing committee, Etienne Thobois, could travel to observe the progress of these Games with a reduced team.
This summer, Tony Estanguet, triple Olympic champion in C1 slalom in Sydney in 2000, Athens in 2004 and London in 2012, went to Tokyo for the Summer Olympics, postponed for a year, from 2020 to 2021, due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“Zero Covid” strategy
Beijing recorded the highest number of cases of contamination for eighteen months on Sunday, as the Chinese capital prepares to host the Winter Olympics. These Olympics will take place in ” closed loop “ for the participants, in order to prevent any contact between them and the local population.
China, which intends to pursue its zero Covid strategy, has practically eradicated the epidemic on its soil since the spring of 2020 thanks to massive screenings, targeted confinements as soon as the first cases appear and a long quarantine on arrival on the ground. territory.
But the country’s authorities are currently grappling with epidemic foci in several cities of the country, as well as within the “health bubble” of the Olympic Games.