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Coronavirus-Hit Greece Withdraws from Artistic Swimming in Tokyo

Greece Swimming Coronavirus
The Greek Artistic Swimming team during the qualifier. Credit: Hellenic Olympic Committee

Greece will miss the entire artistic swimming team competition at the Tokyo Olympics due to a new outbreak of coronavirus cases, according to a statement by the Hellenic Olympic Committee early on Tuesday.

Three more Greek athletes of the artistic swimming team have tested positive for COVID-19, according to an announcement from the Committee.

”The Hellenic Olympic Committee announces that three new positive cases of coronavirus were found in the artistic swimming team, after a test that was done,” the statement reads.

”All three athletes, who had no obvious symptoms, will leave the Olympic Village and continue their stay in a quarantined hotel,” the Committee stated.

”This team has not come in contact with other members of the Greek delegation for obvious reasons, from the very first day of its stay in the Olympic Village. The HOC is always on the side of the athletes and provides every possible help,” the statement continued.

”After this development, there will be no representation of Greece in the teams of synchronized swimming,” the statement concluded in a devastating development for the athletes who traveled to Japan to represent their country.

Greek artistic swimming team hit by COVID before

The Greek artistic swimming team had been quarantined in a hotel earlier in July.

This had come after traveling with an assistant who tested positive for COVID-19.

The Hellenic Olympic Committee had announced that the assistant had tested positive after arriving at the airport in Tokyo.

Evangelia Platanioti was the first member of the team to test positive. Platanioti received her result before ever arriving in Tokyo, and has since dropped out of the games.

Another member of the Greek artistic swimming team at the Tokyo Olympics tested positive for the coronavirus on Monday as well; however, the Committee had thought at the time that the team could go ahead and continue with their performances.

Greece’s artistic swimming team at the Tokyo Olympics

The Greek artistic swimming team is composed of nine talented young women.

The athletes on the team are Evangelia Papazoglou, Evangelia Platanioti, Maria Alzigkouzi, Georgia Vasilopoulou, Krystalenia Gialama, Penelope Karamesiou, Adriana Misikevits, Eleni Fragkaki, and Danai Kariori.

Greece’s artistic swimming team qualified for the Tokyo Olympic Games after a breathtaking performance to the music of “Cats” in Barcelona, Spain in mid-June.

After a thrilling competition, which was a nail-biter till the very last competitor, Italy, Spain, and Greece earned their tickets to this year’s Olympic Games in Tokyo.

The three nations joined previously qualified Australia, Canada, China, Egypt, Japan, Russia, and Ukraine.

Unfortunately, following the latest developments, Greece’s hopes for a medal in artistic swimming have now been crushed, in what is proving to be a very strange year for the history of the Olympic Games.

Watch below their amazing qualifying performance:

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