Greece synchronized swimming team pulls out of Olympics after members test COVID positive

After at least four of the team's athletes tested positive for the coronavirus, the Hellenic Olympic Committee on Tuesday announced that Greece will not compete in Olympic synchronized swimming in Tokyo 2020 Olympics Games. The entire team was sent away from the Olympic Village and transferred to a separate hotel to quarantine, the committee announced in an official statement. Artistic swimming is an athletic sport that had just kicked off with the first days of competition when it was found that one athlete had tested positive. The cases increased with two more swimmers testing positive and one more Greek athlete joined the caseload is when the Greek officials said that the team will not participate in either the duet artistic swimming or any other group events due to the COVID-19 outbreak among the swimmers. 

Greek athletes are asymptomatic

The athletes who were diagnosed positive for the novel coronavirus are asymptomatic, Greek officials said Tuesday. The country had grappled to compete in the games with its best swimmer Evangelia Platanioti, a member of the duet team first opting out after testing positive to COVID-19 in late July. She was then rushed to Japan on board a flight after she tested negative and was requested to be reinstated in the Tokyo games to compete. Greece’s Platanioti and her swimming partner, Evangelia Papazoglou earlier finished at tenth place in preliminary rounds. 

In the statement released Tuesday, the Hellenic Olympic Commission wrote: “Due to the new cases of coronavirus in the artistic swimming team, the Organizing Committee informed the Headquarters of the Greek team that the other members of the artistic swimming team must leave the Olympic Village and be transferred to an intensive care hotel.”

It added, “This means that definitively, there will be no Greek representation either in the group or in the duet of artistic swimming.” 

The Olympics organizing committee ruled out the risk of COVID-19 infection to other members of the Greek delegation saying that the Greek synchronized swimming team has not been in direct contact with other athletes and staff since the time that they arrived on the Airport. Since the games begun on July 1, nearly 299 players and staff linked to the Olympics games tested positive for the COVID-19, according to the Tokyo Games officials database.