Australian Athletes Facing COVID-19 Dilemma With Tokyo Olympics Fast Approaching

As of this writing, the Tokyo Olympics will go on as scheduled unless a sudden change of plans comes in the following months.

It is already a dilemma that has added to the stress of every competitor in the quadrennial meet, and Australian athletes are not spared from it.

With Olympians categorically young, fit and healthy, the priority for most countries is to have people at higher risk of contracting COVID-19 be vaccinated first.

But with the Olympics fast approaching, there are suggestions to bump them up the line for obvious reasons, the Guardian reported. Unfortunately, that has yet to be settled although things can change in the coming months with the games set to start in July.

However, the wait-and-see angle poses a problem for athletes set to participate in the Olympic games. Though probably healthy now, they are also wary of possibly contracting the disease once they arrive in Japan. It would not come as a surprise if delegates from other countries would fear the same.

One athlete who unfortunately has this in mind is Steve Solomon. He is a 400-meter sprinter and co-captain of the Australian athletics team.

For him, he prefers to get vaccinated before he heads to Japan. But even if he is not given the vaccine, he goes on to say he will proceed since he wants to represent his country.

“If I am not vaccinated by then, I will still go. That is a risk I am willing to take to represent my country. I firmly believe that the vaccine needs to be given first to those parts of the population that are most vulnerable to the coronavirus,” Solomon stated.

Bear in mind that the International Olympic Committee is not making vaccination compulsory. However, the governing body highly encourages it.

As far as Australia is concerned, athletes are set to be vaccinated in the second phase once the roll-out starts.

Though they may not be low-risk for now, athletes bound for the Tokyo Olympics could put themselves at risk of infection if they proceed without getting vaccinated.

Professor Adrian Esterman, the chairperson of biostatistics and epidemiology at the University of South Australia, believes that this could be a good justification to have athletes, coaches, and staff to be bumped up the pecking order.

“There is no reason, being fit and healthy, why they shouldn’t get the AstraZeneca vaccine,” Esterman said. “We have ample doses available that vaccinating them first would have no impact on the rollout.”