Olympics
South African footballers are 1st athlete with Covid at Tokyo 2020 Games Village
Two South Africa footballers have become the first competitors to test positive for coronavirus in the athletes’ village in Tokyo – five days before the start of the Olympic Games.
Meanwhile, six athletes and two staff members from Team GB’s athletics team, who were required to self-isolate after being identified as close contacts with a fellow passenger on their inbound flight to Japan, have resumed training.
The athletes have all produced multiple negative PCR results during their time in isolation.
South Africa’s Football Association confirmed Thabiso Monyane and Kamohelo Mahlatsi as their positive cases.
Mario Masha, the South Africa football team’s video analyst, also tested positive on Saturday.
Organisers say 21 South Africa players and officials have been identified as close contacts.
They are confined to their rooms in the Olympic village, with all of their meals delivered to the door, and they must take daily PCR tests.
All the results on Sunday were negative and as long as that continues, the squad will be will be allowed to train in a bubble as they prepare for their match against Japan on Thursday.
“We have three positive cases of Covid-19 in the camp here, two players and an official,” said South Africa team manager Mxolisi Sibam.
“There is daily screening which included taking temperature and saliva testing.
“Masha and Monyane reported high temperatures and positive saliva tests and were then taken to do the nasal test, which we all had initially taken – and they unfortunately tested positive for Covid through that test. Mahlatsi is the latest player to go through the same process.”
Monyane, a right-back with Orlando Pirates in his homeland, posted on social media when the team arrived in Tokyo.
South Africa Sevens rugby coach Neil Powell also tested positive on Sunday on arrival in Japan and is now isolating in Kagoshima, where the squad is based for a pre-Games training camp.
On Monday, the Czech Olympic Committee announced that beach volleyball player Ondrej Perusic had tested positive in the athletes’ village, two days after a staff member had tested positive following their arrival in Tokyo on a charter flight from Prague.
Organisers had earlier announced six new cases connected to the Olympics including media, contractors and other personnel, though none of those were in the village.
That brings the total number of positive cases to 62, with 29 among the 22,000 accredited people who have arrived from abroad.
Infection rates are rising among the general population of Tokyo, topping 1,000 new cases for four consecutive days. Polls show many Japanese people oppose holding the Games with the influx of overseas visitors it entails.
One of the Games’ sponsors, Toyota, said its executives would not be attending Friday’s opening ceremony, an event spectators were already unable to attend.
The manufacturer also confirmed it would not run any Olympics-related adverts in Japan because of the uncertainty around the Games among the country’s population, though adverts would still be aired internationally.
Organisers of the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics said on Monday that registration for the first ticket draw will close on March 18, as the Games begin to take shape with the first baseball qualifiers confirmed and the soccer tournament schedule expanded.
More than five million fans from 197 countries and territories have registered at tickets.la28.org since January for a chance to buy tickets, LA28 said, underscoring strong early demand for the Summer Games, which are due to open on July 14, 2028.
Fans who register by the March 18 deadline will be eligible for a lottery to receive a purchase window for the first ticket release, scheduled for April 9-19.
There will also be a local presale running from April 2-6 for eligible residents in parts of Southern California and Oklahoma. Oklahoma City will host softball and canoe slalom.
LA28 said selected applicants would be notified by email between March 31 and April 7. Fans picked for the first sale window will be able to buy up to 12 tickets for Olympic events, subject to availability, with a four-ticket cap for each of the opening and closing ceremonies.
BASEBALL RETURNS
The ticketing update comes as the first teams booked places in the Olympic baseball tournament through the 2026 World Baseball Classic. The Dominican Republic and Venezuela secured qualification spots from the Americas, joining host United States in the six-team field.
Baseball, one of the sports added to the LA28 programme, will return to the Olympics for the first time since the Tokyo Games and will be played at Dodger Stadium from July 13-19. The remaining three places will be decided through international qualifying tournaments in 2027 and 2028.
LA28 also confirmed that the Olympic soccer tournament will begin on July 10, four days before the opening ceremony, following a decision by the International Olympic Committee Executive Board to extend the competition window.
Organisers said the longer schedule would give teams two additional rest days compared with previous Games.
Group-stage and quarter-final matches will be staged in seven U.S. cities – New York, Columbus, Nashville, St. Louis, San Jose, San Diego and Pasadena – with the men’s and women’s gold medal matches to be played at the Rose Bowl.
LA28 said kickoff times and the full schedule would be released later this year.
-Reuters
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Athletes at the Milano Cortina Winter Games have raced through their free condom supply ahead of Valentine’s Day, leaving dispensers empty on Saturday, with more than a week of competition remaining.
According to a report by Reuters, organisers had distributed around 10,000 condoms across the city and mountain accommodation sites, continuing a long-standing Olympic tradition aimed at promoting safe relationships among competitors living in close quarters.
By Saturday, however, supplies had run out — adding Milan to a growing list of Olympic hosts where demand has comfortably exceeded expectations.
“Clearly, this shows Valentine’s Day is in full swing at the village,” International Olympic Committee spokesman Mark Adams told a press conference. “Ten thousand have been used — 2,800 athletes — you can go figure, as they say.”
Adams added with a smile: “It is rule 62 of the Olympic Charter that we have to have a condoms story. Faster, higher, stronger, together.”
Milano Cortina organisers later acknowledged that stocks had been depleted due to “higher-than-anticipated demand,” but assured that additional supplies were already on the way.
“Additional supplies are being delivered and will be distributed across all Villages between today and Monday,” organisers said in a statement. “They will be continuously replenished until the end of the Games to ensure continued availability.”
The unexpected shortage also surprised some athletes.
Mexican figure skater Donovan Carrillo said he had only just heard about the situation. “I just saw that this morning. I was, like, shocked as everyone else,” he said.
Mialitiana Clerc, an alpine skier representing Madagascar, noted that boxes once placed at building entrances were quickly emptied.
“There were a lot of boxes at the entrance of every building where we were staying, and every day, everything had gone from the boxes,” Clerc said. “I already know that a lot of people are using condoms, or giving them to their friends outside of the Olympics, because it’s a kind of gift for them.”
While medals remain the official measure of achievement at the Games, the empty dispensers suggest that the social side of the Olympics is also proceeding at full pace.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Friday awarded a top state honour to an Olympic skeleton racer who was disqualified from the Winter Games for wearing a helmet commemorating athletes killed in the war with Russia.
Zelenskiy, speaking to Vladyslav Heraskevych on the sidelines of the annual Munich Security Conference, said he had great respect for “all the Olympians who supported you and your position.”
“Medals are important for Ukraine and for you, but it seems to me that the most important thing is who you are,” Zelenskiy said while presenting the racer with the Order of Freedom.
Heraskevych told the president the award was “huge” and that the athletes depicted on the helmet “deserve it even more. Because of their sacrifice, we can compete in the Olympics.”
Heraskevych, 27, was disqualified at the Winter Games in Italy on Thursday when the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation jury ruled that the helmet’s depiction of athletes killed since Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022 breached rules on political neutrality.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport dismissed his appeal on Friday.
Heraskevych told reporters after the award ceremony that his disqualification was discriminatory as he had not violated the Olympic Charter, a document he said he “really valued.”
“But at the same time, I understand that this scandal has united people around the world about our problem and about the sacrifice of these great athletes, and I believe this goal is much more important than any medal,” he said.
Speaking before the CAS hearing earlier in the day, Heraskevych said his exclusion and rules imposed by the International Olympic Committee were “an instrument of propaganda for Russia. I still receive a lot of threats from the Russian side.”
-Reuters
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