Although Australia was the first Paris Olympics delegation to declare a case of Covid, no strict instructions have been given to the delegations as yet.
The Paris Olympics 2024 is set to be the first post-pandemic Summer Games, being held three years after the Tokyo Games—postponed from 2020 to 2021 due to the health crisis, and organised largely without spectators.
As rugby 7s and football open the Olympic fortnight on Wednesday, just before the opening ceremony on Friday, the Australian team was the first to report that one of its athletes had tested positive for Covid and was placed in isolation. “The athlete is not particularly ill,” said Anna Meares, head of the Australian team. All close contacts were tested and only one was positive. The wearing of masks and social distancing have been brought back into fashion in the Aussie ranks.
"I must stress that we treat Covid in the same way as other viruses such as influenza. We are not in Tokyo," said Meares. In Japan in 2021, a strict health bubble was put in place for the duration of the games. According to the organisers, this did not prevent 458 people, including 29 athletes, from contracting Covid.
The French government and the World Health Organisation (WHO) have recently clarified that there is only a moderate increase in Covid cases in France. “There is no major cluster risk,” Health Minister Frédéric Valletoux said. "Of course, Covid is there. We have seen a small peak (in cases), but we are a long way from what we saw in 2020, 2021, 2022,” he added.
The low number of cases would mean that there is no obligation to wear a mask.
Different opinions at Club France
On Monday, during his visit to the Olympic Village, French President Emmanuel Macron was not wearing a mask, although he came in contact with several people and posed for photos.
The day before, Tony Estanguet, President of the Olympics and Paralympics Organising Committee (COJO), had said: "We are monitoring this virus very closely with the French health authorities. There is no recommendation to reinforce measures, even if the Paris 2024 teams are planning to activate contingency plans."
Some 9,000 athletes are expected to attend the event in Paris.
Even without strict instructions, the majority of delegations have kept up their habits of preventive measures, particularly when they are in contact with outsiders.
Such is the case at Club France, in La Villette (19th arrondissement), where press conferences are multiplying these days, mixing athletes and media. On Monday afternoon, the rowing delegation showed up masked, and those present in the amphitheater were asked to do likewise. The rugby team just before and the canoe-kayak team afterward had not demanded this.
Asked about the presence of Covid cases, rowing DTN Sébastien Vieilledent said, "It is a precaution. We don't have any cases, but we have seen the rise of viral phenomena, and we have followed the context and developments. In a discipline such as ours, which involves endurance and strength, and is extremely physiological, a virus would be quite catastrophic, especially as we enter the competition in the first week (Saturday). We tried to find the right balance between well-being, serenity and the ability to be realistic and see what was going on around us."
Two weeks ago, Covid passed through the slalom, with causing much problems. “The doctor just asked us not to do high intensities at the time," says Arnaud Brogniart, coach to Nicolas Gestin, vice-world champion celestial racer. But it all happened very quickly, and Nicolas, for example, was knocked out for just one day.
Not all delegations are so transparent, taking refuge behind the famous “flu or viral syndrome” as was the case with basketball in particular. The handball players, on the other hand, are used to managing competitions where Covid is on the prowl. So much so that Guillaume Gille, the coach of the Olympic champions, confided not without a touch of humor: "The air-conditioning virus is back...There is air conditioning everywhere, so there's bound to be some coughing and voices going a bit off the rails. We have been managing Covid for a very long time, and today we are taking a much more pragmatic approach, and treating the sick. We don't fall into a delirium of overprotection, it is something we can't control or master. We are in the business of medicine: people who are well are well, and those who are sick we take care of.”
At the Éguzon open-air base (Indre), around a 45-minute drive from the Centre National de Tir Sportif in Déols (a suburb of Châteauroux), where the shooting events will take place from Friday, Doliprane tablets were not distributed to the French delegation. They, however, have been advised to go easy on the kisses.
(—L'Équipe)
