Saturday 31 July 2021
“Very great relief”
Gift is allowed to leave the quarantine hotel
Simon Geschke has to be in quarantine, his start in the Olympic road race fizzles out. A positive corona test ensures the move to the quarantine hotel – which is now notorious. Now the German professional cyclist is allowed to move out after two negative tests. He can’t believe it yet.
The German professional cyclist Simon Geschke is allowed to leave the quarantine in Tokyo prematurely after two negative corona tests and is supposed to start the delayed journey home to Germany on Sunday. This was announced by the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB).
“In an intensive exchange between our head Olympic doctor Prof. Dr. Bernd Wolfarth, the authorities and the Medical Commission of the IOC, we were able to accelerate the return journey by two days,” said Head of Mission Dirk Schimmelpfennig.
Nevertheless, there remains great regret and sympathy for Geschke, “who was robbed of his Olympic experience by the infection. We tried to make the waiting time easier for him with training equipment and special nutrition, but his patience in the quarantine was put to the test,” said Schimmelpfennig.
The 35-year-old Geschke, who was supposed to start the Olympic road race, was brought to a quarantine hotel in Tokyo last Saturday after a positive Covid test. He felt “a great deal of relief,” said Geschke: “But I won’t believe it until I’m on the plane.” According to the pandemic regulations for the Olympics, gifts could have been held in quarantine for a maximum of 14 days.
“Inhuman”
The conditions in the quarantine hotel cause a lot of excitement. Geschke had complained heavily: “Absolutely nothing works here,” he said. “It’s half psychiatry, half prison. Although it is more likely to be psychiatry.” For his comparison of the corona quarantine at the Olympics in Tokyo with a psychiatry of patient representatives in Germany criticized, Geschke apologized.
The German embassy in Japan had also finally intervened: “We are working with the DOSB to ease the situation, which is really not easy, as much as possible within the framework currently set by Japan,” said a spokeswoman the German Embassy in Tokyo of the German Press Agency. At the same time, they are in the process of agreeing internally with other EU countries on how to “work towards improving the quarantine conditions” in talks with the Japanese side.
Geschke wasn’t the only one who had complained. Other athletes who had to go to the quarantine hotel also expressed their displeasure with the “inhuman” conditions, as the Dutch skateboarder Candy Jacobs said.
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