Olympia: First German athlete in Beijing tested positive for Corona

Figure skater Nolan Seegert was the first German athlete to test positive for the corona virus at the Winter Olympics in Beijing. The 29-year-old pair runner is in an isolation hotel and is symptom-free, the German Olympic Sports Confederation announced on Wednesday. A few days earlier, a German supervisor in the Zhangjiakou mountain region had already been diagnosed with a corona infection.

There is also a confirmed case of contact in the figure skating team. Seegert already wanted to start with his sporting partner Minerva Hase in the couples’ short program in the team event on Friday. In addition, Seegert and Hase are registered for the pair skating competition on February 18th and 19th. You had prepared for the Olympics in Russia.

“We said before that we were going to have trouble”

Anyone who contracted the virus at the Beijing Olympics will be isolated in a specially designated hotel. Only after two negative PCR tests at least 24 hours apart can those affected leave before the end of ten days. After this period, only a negative PCR test is required.

“We said before that we would have difficulties, that the difficulty would be to let the athletes from Germany fly to Beijing without a virus. We actually have a very small problem here thanks to the perfect protective measures taken by the individual associations,” said Chef de Mission Dirk Schimmelpfennig said earlier on Wednesday and referred to the two cases so far. “We had expected that. All in all, one has to say that the balance sheet with a lot of people who arrive negative, who remain negative after one, two, three days and therefore have a huge chance of being virus-free in the bladder, is very gratifying.”

The Olympic makers gave the total number of positive tests as 232 on Wednesday. Of these, 136 infections were found during controls at the airport, 96 within the so-called closed circuit for all those involved in the Olympics.

149 athletes were nominated for the German Olympic team. They should travel to China in several groups. Strict measures to protect against the corona virus apply to the Winter Games, which open on Friday. Even before departure, all those involved in the Olympics had to be tested several times and were required to reduce their contacts as much as possible. In China, further PCR tests follow daily after entry in order to quickly detect infections and prevent the virus from spreading.

Olympic bubble is said to be “closed circuit”.

The Chinese organizers have set up an Olympic bubble that is controlled even more strictly than at the last summer games in Tokyo. Any contact between those involved in the Olympics and the Chinese population outside of this so-called “closed circuit” should be prevented.

After fierce debates about the limits for positive tests, the Chinese hosts recently relaxed these requirements. German athletes and officials had previously expressed concern that Olympic participants who tested negative before leaving could receive a positive result because of the different limit values ​​in China.

Cross-country team manager Peter Schlickenrieder had recently warned of the risks of getting there: “We get on a plane to China with many other athletes from sports where it may not be taken that seriously at one point or another moment of danger.” Schimmelpfennig also spoke of an “exceptional situation” and said: “The aggressive omicron wave is raging worldwide. It is therefore a very demanding task to get to the Olympic bubble in China free of the virus.”