Chilean taekwondo player Fernanda Aguirre and Dutch skateboarder Candy Jacobs have been ruled out of the delayed Olympic Games here after testing positive for COVID-19.
Aguirre, a Pan American bronze medallist, is the first athlete to have been forced to withdraw from Tokyo 2020 because of a positive COVID-19 test.
News later emerged that Jacobs had tested positive in the Olympic Village and she will miss out on skateboarding’s debut at the Games.
Aguirre 21-year-old had been due to compete in the women’s under-57 kilograms category at the Makuhari Messe on Sunday (July 25).
Aguirre returned two positive tests at the airport after travelling from Uzbekistan to the Japanese capital.
The Chilean Olympic Committee (COCH) said she had tested negative before leaving for Tokyo.
The COCH said she had been placed into a medical facility, where she will undergo her 10-day quarantine period.
Aguirre’s case was revealed in today’s update on confirmed new COVID-19 cases among people in Japan connected to the Games since July 1, although it she had not been identified by organisers.
Jacobs is the fourth athlete to have tested positive inside the Olympic Village, following South African footballers Thabiso Monyane and Kamohelo Mahlatsi and Czech beach volleyball player Ondřej Perušič.
A member of the Czech delegation and a video analyst with the South African team have also returned positive tests at the Village, which the International Olympic Committee has claimed will be the “safest place” in Tokyo.
“I’m devastated,” the 31-year-old Dutch athlete, among the entrants for the women’s street event on Monday (July 26), said.
“We were ready for the Games, I feel fit and now it’s over.
“I need time to process this but I wish my team all the strength and success in Tokyo.”
Monyane and Mahlatsi could feasibly still compete once their quarantine has finished.
Perušič, who has tested positive for COVID-19, and partner David Schweiner are set to miss their opening match on July 26 and could be forced to pull out of the Games.
Kara Eaker, an alternate on the United States women’s artistic gymnastics team, was placed into isolation after contracting the virus at a pre-Tokyo 2020 training camp.
Tokyo today recorded more than 1,800 new COVID-19 cases, the seventh time this month the number has exceeded 1,000.
