To avoid a possible contagion by the coronavirus pandemic. If you allow your eight other classified athletes, who do not reside in Samoa, to come to Tokyo.
Samoa has decided that its three Olympic weightlifting representatives will not attend the Tokyo Games due to the coronavirus pandemic , as announced by its Olympic Committee. The Radio New Zealand portal had reported a few hours before that the Samoa interim government was going to withdraw its entire Olympic team.
Patrick Fepulea’i, president of the Samoa Sports Association and National Olympic Committee, said in a statement that the three athletes who make up the country’s weightlifting team, who currently live in Samoa, will not participate, but the other eight classified Samoans will not participate. for the Games they will attend the Olympic event as they do not reside in the country.
These eight athletes, who will represent Samoa in boxing, sailing, canoeing, athletics and judo, will be attending as they do not live in Samoa. Two are regularly based in Australia, four in New Zealand, one in the United States and one in Japan. After the Olympics, they will return to these places, instead of Samoa,
” We understand the government’s decision, especially the need to protect Samoa from the virus , especially the new mutation that is now spreading throughout the world,” the statement added.
“It’s terrible, it’s discouraging, it’s very discouraging. They have decided that no one is leaving Samoa. I will talk to my lifters this afternoon and share the bad news ,” Jerry Wallwork, head of Samoa’s weightlifting leader, told Reuters Tuaopepe.