MOSCOW (AP) — Russian figure skater Mikhail Kolyada has been ruled out of next month’s Beijing Olympics after testing positive for the coronavirus.
The Russian Figure Skating Federation said Tuesday that Kolyada tested positive ahead of traveling to a pre-Olympic training camp and has been replaced by Evgeni Semenenko.
“Several days ago Mikhail Kolyada started feeling unwell,” the federation said. “For all this time the skater has not been training.”
Kolyada was the only member of Russia’s three-strong men’s team who had previously competed at the Olympics and the only former world championship medalist after winning bronze in 2018.
Semenenko joins European champion Mark Kondratiuk and 2020 world junior champion Andrei Mozalev on the team.
Another Russian athlete who risks missing the Olympics is skeleton slider Nikita Tregubov, the silver medalist in 2018. His coach Danil Chaban told the RIA Novosti news agency Tuesday that Tregubov tested positive for the coronavirus during a recent training camp in the southern city of Sochi. Chaban said Tregubov was being monitored by doctors before his scheduled flight to Beijing on Jan. 31.
The strict testing requirements before and during the Olympics are likely to rule out more athletes. Two-time ski jumping gold medalist Andreas Wellinger will also miss the Beijing Games because he tested positive last week, one day before the German team was selected.
“The risk for him and for the team is too high,” team spokesman Ralph Eder said Tuesday.
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