[ad_1]
An Ethiopian runner had to pull out of the London Marathon after she and the coach of two other elite marathoners tested positive for the coronavirus, the race director said Tuesday.
Degitu Azimeraw, who won the 2019 Amsterdam Marathon, and coach Haji Adilo tested positive in Ethiopia.
“As a result (of the positive tests), they didn’t get on the plane,” London Marathon event director Hugh Brasher said in a conference call ahead of Sunday’s race.
Adilo is the coach of Ethiopian runners Shura Kitata and Alemu Megertu, both of whom will remain in the race because there was no “face-to-face contact” with their coach in the past two weeks, Brasher said.
The London race has all the trappings of a 2020 sporting event: hotel bubble for athletes, competition modifications and no spectators. Athletes and their coaches are staying at a hotel reserved only for them outside London.
Protocols required virus testing before athletes left for London and on the day of their arrival. They’ll also be tested on Friday.
Instead of snaking along the River Thames, the athletes will compete on a 26.2-mile (42.2 kilometer) closed-loop course consisting of 19.6 clockwise laps around St. James’ Park, ending on the Mall. It should be a fast course for defending champions Eliud Kipchoge, Brigid Kosgei and their challengers, but potential wet weather could dampen hopes of world records.
COLLEGES
COVID-19: La Salle has cut seven sports, effective at the end of the academic year, in a move affecting approximately 130 athletes.
The Philadelphia-based university sliced men’s baseball, swimming and diving, tennis and water polo. It also cut women’s softball, volleyball and tennis. The university announced the move in an open letter on its website.
The cuts drop La Salle’s intercollegiate athletics teams from 25 to 18.
The statement said the university could no longer sustain an athletics department that offered more Atlantic 10-sponsored teams than any other in the conference at a school positioned in the conference’s bottom-quartile in enrollment.
• The University at Buffalo says 25 athletes, including 19 football players, have tested positive for the coronavirus.
Athletic director Mark Alnutt says five members of the women’s volleyball team and one women’s soccer player also tested positive. Alnutt says the athletes have been placed in isolation and are doing well.
All three teams have suspended activities through at least Monday.
The spike in cases at Buffalo comes after an athlete reported symptoms consistent with COVID-19, which led to the school testing 322 players.
BASKETBALL
NBA: Chris Paul has enrolled in a historically Black college in North Carolina, where he will take a class and encourage students to get to the polls.
The Oklahoma City guard has enrolled at Winston-Salem State, across town from Wake Forest, where he played for two seasons before going to the NBA, the Winston-Salem Journal reported. His parents also attended Winston-Salem State.
SOCCER
BUNDESLIGA: Bayern Munich forward Leroy Sané will miss around two weeks because of a new injury to the same knee he injured at Manchester City last season, coach Hansi Flick said on Tuesday.
Flick said Sané won’t be available at least until the end of the upcoming international break because of the damaged capsule in his right knee joint. “We hope that after the international break he will back with us,” Flick said.
EUROPA LEAGUE: Armenia will no longer host a Europa League soccer game on Thursday amid the country’s escalating conflict with neighboring Azerbaijan.
UEFA said the playoff game in the capital city of Yerevan, between Ararat-Armenia and Serbia’s Red Star Belgrade, was moved to neutral Cyprus.
Related Stories
[ad_2]
Source link