Banners for the Czech Republic (bottom) and the Olympic refugee team (top) are seen on a building in the Olympic and Paralympic Village ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The Czech team is investigating a cluster of coronavirus cases.
Behrouz Mehri/AFP via Getty Images
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Behrouz Mehri/AFP via Getty Images
Banners for the Czech Republic (bottom) and the Olympic refugee team (top) are seen on a building in the Olympic and Paralympic Village ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. The Czech team is investigating a cluster of coronavirus cases.
Behrouz Mehri/AFP via Getty Images
Czech Olympic officials are looking into a cluster of coronavirus cases linked to a charter flight that brought a group of athletes and staff to Japan. The country’s team has six cases of coronavirus.
A doctor who was on the flight was reportedly among the first to test positive. As of late Thursday, four athletes have also tested positive for the coronavirus.
Road cyclist Michael Schlegel is the latest athlete to test positive, joining a roster that includes two beach volleyball players and a table tennis player. Schlegel will not be able to compete in the Olympic road race on Saturday Czech Olympic Committee She said.
Beach volleyball player Markéta Nausch Sluková, another athlete who tested positive, will miss Saturday’s match.
The national team says it is urgently investigating the trip that brought a large part of the Czech Olympic delegation to Tokyo last week. In a sign of how deep doubts about the flight path were, after Schlegel’s test was confirmed, only cycling team officials who were on the charter plane were asked to report to Tokyo directly for further coronavirus tests.
The range of issues linked to charter flights has become a big story in the Czech Republic, especially after media there reported that many passengers had taken off their masks immediately after the plane took off.
Prime Minister Andrej Babis described the situation as scandalous and unfair to athletes. Radio Prague International reports.
Much of the scrutiny falls on the doctor on board, Vlastimil Vorasik, who was reportedly unvaccinated and who has launched outlandish theories about the COVID-19 pandemic — including the idea that people can protect themselves by gargling regularly with mouthwash, according to the news outlet. Message List.
The state Olympic officials say They want the investigation to focus on whether all precautions against COVID-19 were observed before, during and after the charter flight – and whether some of the plane’s passengers failed to meet their responsibilities.
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