Team USA volleyball player Taylor Crabb reportedly tests positive for Covid-19 and will miss Tokyo Olympics
(CNN) — US men’s beach volleyball player Taylor Crabb will not participate in the Tokyo Olympics after testing positive for Covid-19, according to NBC News. Crabb is the fourth US athlete to test positive for the virus.
“The health and safety of our athletes, coaches and staff is our top priority. We can confirm that a member of Team USA tested positive upon their arrival into Japan,” USA Volleyball said in a statement Wednesday.
The 29-year-old joins Coco Gauff, Katie Lou Samuelson and Kara Eaker as US athletes who will not participate in the Tokyo Olympics after testing positive for Covid-19.
Crabb is expected to be replaced by Tri Bourne, according to The Orange County Register. Bourne will join four-time Olympian Jake Gibb for Team USA’s opening match against Italy at Shiokaze Park on Sunday.
CNN Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta, reporting from Tokyo, said the Olympics bring a unique challenge. More than 11,000 athletes representing 206 national Olympic committees have come to an island nation that has seen a surge in cases.
There will be no influx of fans to the country, as there will be no spectators for the events in Tokyo and the venues in nearby prefectures.
Athletes in Tokyo are being told to limit their movements to venues and the village. The rest of the strategy is the pillars of pandemic public health, the chair of Independent Expert Panel (IEP) for the International Olympic Committee told Gupta recently.
“Social distancing, physical distancing, wearing a mask and hand hygiene,” Olympic Games health adviser Dr. Brian McCloskey said. “They were always at the fundamental core of what we knew would reduce the risk of Covid during the Games. And then we started a layer on top of that, the testing strategy that we might have.”
He told Olympics reporters Monday he thought the Covid-19 numbers were “actually extremely low, they are probably lower than we were expecting to see if anything.”