Tokyo: The Covid-19 cases associated with the Tokyo Olympics breached the 100-mark Friday. A total of 19 new infections was announced and the Czech contingent seemed among the worst hit. This came after a fourth Czech athlete – road cyclist Michal Schlegel – tested positive for the virus. The worrying milestone was touched on the day the Games official began with the opening currently under way. The city logged 1,359 Covid-19 cases Friday.
The organisers, in their daily Covid-19 update, announced that three athletes, 10 Games-concerned personnel, three mediapersons and an identical number of contractors associated with the event have been found positive. The total number of cases directly linked to the Olympic Games stood at 106 on Friday with 11 of them athletes.
The Czech contingent reported its sixth overall case even as it investigated breach of health safety protocols while travelling to Japan.
“The fourth athlete and the sixth Czech member of the team, who did not avoid a positive test for Covid-19 at the Tokyo Olympics, is road cyclist Michal Schlegel,” the country’s National Olympic Committee (NOC) stated. “His positive antigen test was also confirmed by PCR analysis in a cycling village in Izu. Now Schlegel is back in the hotel for road cyclists in isolation,” it added.
Schlegel was to compete Saturday but ‘will not make it to the Olympic road race’. “Other road cycling representatives Tereza Neumanova and Michael Kukrle also went to Tokyo for testing,” the Czech NOC stated. “Zdenek Stybar stayed in the cycling hotel, as he was not on board a charter flight from Prague and arrived in Japan two days later,” it added.
The Czech contingent’s doctor Vlastimil Voracek also tested positive Thursday for the virus.
Reports also trickled in from Jamaica that a men’s long jumper Carey McLeod has tested positive in his own country, ruling him out of the Games. “The athlete is Carey McLeod who was set to compete in the men’s long and triple jump events. The positive Covid-19 test was received this week. It’s understood that he has been notified and is in isolation,” ‘Nationwide Sports’ reported.