Australian Athletes Positive For COVID-19 Ahead Of The 2024 Olympics

Chef de Mission Australia, Anna Maers (Instagram/@annameres).

JAKARTA A water polo athlete from the Australian team tested positive for COVID-19, aka the coronavirus, ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics which will open on Friday, July 26, 2024.

The chairman of the Australian Contingent or Chef de Mission, Anna Maeres, confirmed that the athlete had been isolated. He and French officials have also reduced the risk of corona clusters after this first case.

"I need to emphasize that we treat COVID-19 no different from other diseases such as the flu. It's not the 2024 Tokyo Olympics," Meares said.

The athlete's close contact, who was not named, is currently being monitored and tested. However, the entire team continued to undergo training according to plan.

"The athletes weren't seriously ill and they were still training, but sleeping in the same room," Maeres said.

Meares said team-mates from athletes who tested positive for COVID-19 would wear masks and would comply with all the rules, including maintaining distance from contestants and other teams.

"In terms of competition, we will wait until he gets permission. We obtained information from our chief of medical staff, Badminton Brodeck," he said.

The French government and the World Health Organization (WHO) previously confirmed that there was only a moderate increase in COVID-19 cases in the country.

The 2024 Paris Olympics will be attended by more than 10 thousand athletes. Indonesia brought 29 athletes from 12 sports who got qualifying tickets.

This year's Olympics are the first post-pandemic summer Olympics that spectators can watch after the 2020 Tokyo Olympics which had to be postponed for a year due to the corona pandemic.