According to Tuomo Salonen, who worked as Finland’s team manager in Munich, the health of any athlete will not be risked in the match against Sweden next week’s weekend.
Endurance runner Camilla Richardson told about his coronavirus infection on Instagram after the European Championships in Munich on Wednesday. At the same time, Richardsson became the fifth Finnish athlete who has said that he got sick with the corona virus after the European Championships in Munich. They have told about their illness in the past Nathalie Blomqvist, Top Raitanen, Alisa Vainio and Annemari Kiekara.
Coaching manager of the top sports of the Finnish Sports Association, who worked as the Finnish team manager in Munich Tuomo Salonen doesn’t want to give exact numbers, but admits that there have been corona cases in the team since returning home.
– Most of them have developed symptoms two or three days after returning home. The most difficult thing is that the symptoms have come with a delay due to the incubation time, and reacting is difficult in that sense. It is very unfortunate that there have been infections, Salonen commented to Urheilu.
In Munich, the race organizer did not require test results from athletes or support teams, and there were no “bubble arrangements” at the games.
– There they mostly urged to keep a distance. The Finnish team had its own precautions. Before traveling there, we did a home test, with which we aimed to ensure that we would not have sick people traveling at all. We had a mask recommendation especially for traveling and indoors, says Salonen.
The team manager admits that there have been many risks of contracting the coronavirus at the European Championships.
– There we are in close contact not only with our own team but also with others, for example in bus transportation, meals and in competition situations. There have been a lot of encounters and with these the infections have been able to spread from somewhere.
According to Salonen, according to current information, the cases of Finnish athletes are not all connected, and no single clear source has emerged.
The athletics boss admits that the corona measures failed at the European Championships.
– However, more cases are known after returning home. Of course, then we have not succeeded as we would have liked. The goal is that no one would get sick and no one’s health would be threatened. In that sense, we have not succeeded. The good thing about accidents in these games is that there have been incidents only after the games.
The Sweden match is a week and a half away
After a long time, the traditional Swedish match of athletics returns to the Olympic Stadium on the first weekend of September. The last time there was competition at the Olympic Stadium during the Sweden match was in 2014.
However, there is only a week and a half until the match against Sweden.
Do you see that infections threaten the success of the Sweden match?
– A lot depends on what the symptoms of the disease are for each person and how it progresses. However, the health of the athletes is a priority. No one’s health is going to be risked in terms of participating in the Sweden match, but we will monitor the situation and recovery of those who are sick and draw conclusions based on that during the next week.