TOKYO (AP) — American beach volleyball player Taylor Crabb is out of the Olympics after four positive COVID-19 tests. Tri Bourne will take his place as the partner of four-time Olympian Jake Gibb when the competition begins this weekend. Crabb confirmed his withdrawal Thursday in a statement to The Associated Press, noting that he was vaccinated and tested negative before he left the United States but tested positive when he arrived in Japan.
In other Olympics news:
— About 100 of the 613 U.S. athletes descending on Tokyo for the Olympics are unvaccinated. This, according to the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s medical chief. Medical director Jonathan Finnoff says some 600 of the American athletes had filled out their health histories as they prepared for the trip, and estimated 83% had replied they were vaccinated. The IOC has estimated around 85% of residents of the Olympic Village are vaccinated; they base that on what each country’s Olympic committee tells them but have not independently verified the number.
— Naomi Osaka’s opening match in the tennis tournament has been pushed back from Saturday to Sunday. Organizers did not immediately provide a reason for the switch, only saying that the move came from the tournament referee. Osaka was originally scheduled to play 52nd-ranked Zheng Saisai of China in the very first contest of the Games on center court Saturday morning.
— The West African country of Guinea has reversed an earlier decision to pull out of the Olympics and will send a delegation of five athletes. The country’s Minister of Sports made the announcement Thursday after national and international outcries that followed an earlier declaration that Guinea would not send athletes to Tokyo, blaming the coronavirus and its variants.
— The World Anti-Doping Agency says several Russian athletes have been kept away from the Games because of doping suspicions based on evidence from a Moscow testing laboratory that was shut down in 2015. WADA’s director general says it intervened with sports bodies to ensure the handful of athletics were not selected. The team of 335 Russian athletes accredited for Tokyo is competing without a national flag and anthem as punishment for state tampering with the Moscow lab’s database.
— U.S. gymnast Kara Eaker is in isolation after testing positive for COVID-19, while teammate Leanne Wong is in quarantine. Both are alternates for the U.S. team. The U.S. delegation of Simone Biles, Sunisa Lee, Jordan Chiles, Grace McCallum, Jade Carey and MyKayla Skinner worked out on each event during podium training on Thursday. They’re staying in a hotel near the venue rather than the Olympic village, a decision made before they arrived.
— Tokyo hit another six-month high in new COVID-19 cases a day before the Olympics begin. Thursday’s 1,979 new cases are the highest since 2,044 were recorded on Jan. 15. Japan’s prime minister placed Tokyo under a state of emergency on July 12, but daily cases have sharply increased since then.
— Tommie Smith, John Carlos and Gwen Berry are among more than 150 educators, activists and athletes who signed a letter Thursday urging the IOC not to punish participants who demonstrate at the Tokyo Games. The five-page letter asks the IOC not to sanction athletes for kneeling or raising a fist, the way Smith and Carlos did at the 1968 Mexico City Games. That move that got them kicked out of the Olympics.
— The IOC says it will now include images of Olympic athletes taking a knee in its official highlight reels and social media channels. Players from five women’s soccer teams kneeled in support of racial justice before their games Wednesday. Those images were excluded from highlights package provided by the IOC to media that could not broadcast the games live.
— Six Polish swimmers have returned home before the Olympics even started, their dreams scuttled by the country mistakenly sending too many athletes to Tokyo. Only 17 swimmers from Poland qualified for the Tokyo Games. The country’s swimming federation put 23 athletes on the plane to Japan, sparking outrage among those who were denied a chance to compete.
