A Nigerian delegate to the Olympics became the first visitor to the Tokyo Games admitted to hospital with COVID-19, broadcaster TV Asahi said on Friday.
This has come as Japan battles to stem rising local infections a week before the event.
The individual, a non-athlete in his 60s, tested positive on Thursday evening at the airport with mild symptoms but was hospitalised because of age and pre-existing conditions, the broadcaster said.
The TV station did not give further details however.
On Friday, the Australian Olympic Committee said that tennis player Alex de Minaur, ranked 15th in the world, had tested positive prior to his departure for the Games.
He thus became the latest athlete to have the virus shatter his Olympics dream.
“We’re very disappointed for Alex,” Australia’s chef de mission, Ian Chesterman, told reporters.
“He said that he’s shattered, not being able to come … but he has sent his very best wishes for the rest of the team.”
De Minaur returned two positive tests in Spain before he was due to fly to Japan, David Hughes, the AOC’s chief medical officer, told a news conference.
Another Olympic dream crushed was that of U.S. basketball star Bradley Beal.
This was after USA Basketball said on Thursday the Washington Wizards star would miss the Games after entering coronavirus protocols at a training camp in Las Vegas.
The coronavirus has infected several athletes and others involved with the Games, which start on July 23, even as infections spread in Tokyo and experts warn worse may lie ahead.
On Friday, top government spokesman Katsunobu Kato, told a news conference that a Ugandan athlete had gone missing.
The police and the team’s host city, Izumisano in western Japan, have already mounted a search.
Izumisano city authorities identified the missing athlete as Julius Ssekitoleko, 20, and public broadcaster NHK said he was a weightlifter.
Reuters was not immediately able to reach the Ugandan delegation for comment.
Although a state of emergency has been clamped on Tokyo for the pandemic, most measures to limit its spread are voluntary and many say they have grown weary of them.
Organisers have promised that the Games, postponed from last year because of the pandemic, will be “safe and secure.”
They have imposed strict testing and limits on delegates’ activities to try to soothe the concern of the Japanese public, many of whom wanted the Games cancelled or postponed again.
FLEXIBILITY NEEDED.
International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach said on Thursday there was “zero” risk of Games participants infecting Japanese with COVID-19, as infections hit a six-month high in the host city.
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However, Japanese Olympic gold medalist turned chief of the Japan Sports Agency, Koji Murofushi, told Reuters on Friday that organisers needed flexibility and swift decision-making in reacting to the spread.
Host city Tokyo had 1,308 new cases on Thursday and another 1,271 on Friday.
The city’s monitoring committee has warned that if the pace of contagion picked up as people move around and new infectious variants spread, the seven-day moving average could nearly double to 2,406 in four weeks.
That will approach the highest level yet seen in the pandemic.
Japan’s fitful vaccination campaign has also sparked frustration among the local authorities handling most of it.
Momentum gained after a slow start was soon blunted by supply shortages and just 31 percent of people have had at least one dose.(Reuters/NAN)
