A third athlete, a Czech beach volleyball player, at the Olympic Village in Tokyo has tested positive for COVID-19.
A third athlete at the Olympic Village in Tokyo has tested positive for COVID-19, with the Czech Republic team reporting the case Monday of a beach volleyball player who could miss his first game. Czech beach volleyball player Ondrej Perusic could miss his opening game on Monday after a PCR test confirmed his infection. Perusic and his playing partner are due to the begin their Olympic program against a team from Latvia. Czech team leader Martin Doktor said in a statement they would ask to postpone the game until the infected player is cleared to play. Perusic, who said he has been vaccinated, is the second member of the Czech delegation to test positive in Tokyo after a team official’s case was reported Saturday. He is the third athlete who was staying at the village to test positive. Two South African men’s soccer players had their COVID-19 cases announced Sunday. The South African players and a team video analyst who tested positive one day earlier were moved to the “isolation facility” managed by the Tokyo Olympic organizing committee. Their 21 close contacts around the South Africa team now face extra scrutiny before their first game Thursday against Japan in Tokyo. The monitoring regime includes daily testing, traveling in a dedicated vehicle, training separately from teammates not affected and being confined to their rooms for meals. Earlier Monday, before the Czech case was reported, Tokyo Olympic organizers confirmed three new COVID-19 cases, including a media worker arriving in Tokyo and a Games staffer or official in the Chiba prefecture. Both people, who were not identified, went into a 14-day quarantine, organizers said. • Katie Lou Samuelson is out of 3-on-3 basketball at the Olympics after contracting COVID-19 while training in Las Vegas. Samuelson, who plays for the WNBA’s Seattle Storm, flew home to get vaccinated during her European season so that she would be ready to help the U.S. qualify for the Olympics in May. She’ll be replaced on the roster by Jackie Young, who played for the U.S. in a 3-on-3 training camp in 2020 and also competed in the event in the 2019 World Beach Games. Young joins Stefanie Dolson, Allisha Gray and her Las Vegas Aces teammate Kelsey Plum.
