First positive COVID tests for athletes in Olympic Village

TOKYO — Two South African soccer players have become the first athletes inside the Olympic Village to test positive for COVID-19, with the Tokyo Games opening on Friday.

An official with the South African soccer team also tested positive, as did a fourth

member of South Africa’s contingent, the

head coach of the rugby sevens team. The rugby team was in a pre-games training camp in another Japanese city.

Organizers confirmed the positive

tests for the two athletes in the Olympic Village in Tokyo on

Sunday but didn’t identify them other than to say they were non-japanese.

The South African Olympic committee later confirmed the three COVID-19 cases in its soccer delegation at the village — two players and a video analyst. All three were now in

isolation at the Tokyo 2020 isolation facility, the South African Olympic committee

said. The players were defender Thabiso Monyane and midfielder Kamohelo Mahlatsi.

The rest of the South Africa soccer squad had tested negative for the virus twice and was “following closely all the recommendations of the local health authorities,” the South African Olympic committee said.

South Africa is due to play Japan in its first game of the

men’s soccer competition on Thursday at Tokyo Stadium.

South African rugby sevens coach Neil Powell tested positive on Saturday and

is in an isolation facility in the southern city of Kagoshima, where the team is preparing for the

Olympics. Powell will have to stay in

isolation for 14 days and will miss the rugby sevens competition, South Africa’s national rugby body said.

Powell had been vaccinated against COVID-19 with the

one-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine in

South Africa on May 24, team spokesman JJ Harmse told The Associated Press.

South African Olympic and soccer

officials didn’t immediately confirm whether the two soccer players and official who tested positive had been vaccinated. However,

South Africa’s Olympic committee said in May it would offer all

its Olympic athletes going to Tokyo the J&J vaccine.

Tokyo Olympic organizers also said

Sunday that another athlete had tested positive but this person was not residing in the Olympic Village. This athlete was

also identified as “non-japanese.”

Also on Sunday, the first International Olympic Committee member was reported as positive. He recorded a positive test

on Saturday upon entering a Tokyo airport.

The International Olympic Committee confirmed the test and identified him as Ryu Seung-min of

South Korea. He won an Olympic gold

medal in table tennis in the 2004 Olympics.