Swimmer Michael Andrew of Group UNITED STATES made headlines earlier this month when he validated to a press reporter that he has not been vaccinated.
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Tom Pennington/Getty Images
Swimmer Michael Andrew of Team UNITED STATES made headings previously this month when he confirmed to a press reporter that he has not been immunized.
Tom Pennington/Getty Images
Michael Andrew is making waves for not wearing a mask while talking with journalists after swimming the 200-meter specific assortment at the Tokyo Olympics on Friday.
USA Today sports columnist Christine Brennan on Twitter of Andrew maskless in a location where recruiters talk with Olympic professional athletes.
” Michael Andrew, the highest-profile unvaccinated American Olympian, declined to put on a mask in the mixed zone,” Brennan tweeted. “Every various other United States swimmer I have actually seen all week has actually put on one.”
The UNITED STATE Olympic and also Paralympic Committee first claimed that Andrew breached COVID-19 procedures by not using a mask at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre,.
Hours later, the board backpedaled on its remark, claiming Andrew was reminded of COVID-19 protocols and also is enabled to be maskless during mixed-zone meetings.
When asked why he was not wearing a mask, Andrew claimed it influenced his breathing.
Michael Andrew swims in a guys’s 200-meter specific assortment semifinal at the Tokyo Olympics on Thursday.
Matthias Schrader/AP
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Matthias Schrader/AP
Michael Andrew swims in a guys’s 200-meter individual medley semifinal at the Tokyo Olympics on Thursday.
Matthias Schrader/AP
“For me it’s pretty tough to take in after type of sacrificing my body in the water, so I really feel like my health and wellness is a little more tied to being able to breathe than safeguarding what’s appearing of my mouth,” he stated.
He ended up fifth in the males’s 200-meter assortment Friday in a race won by China’s Wang Shun. Andrew damaged the UNITED STATE document in the males’s 100-meter breaststroke during the U.S. Olympic Swim Trial Runs in June. He has actually fallen short to place as well as win a medal in his last two events in Tokyo.
“I believe it’s wonderful that there’s procedures, but at the end of the day, all of us right here have been under quarantine and in the same testing protocol, so there’s a degree of safety and security that fits when we’re racing, “Andrew stated.
The 22-year-old previously this month when he verified his unvaccinated standing to a reporter.
“My reason behind it is, for one, it was kind of a last moment, I didn’t wish to put anything in my body that I really did not know just how I would potentially respond to it,” Andrew claimed during an online media conference.
“As a professional athlete on the elite level, whatever we do is very calculated and also understood. For me, in the training cycle, specifically leading up to trials, I didn’t wish to risk any type of days out. There were periods where you take a vaccination, you have to handle some days off,” Andrew claimed.
Andrew has said months earlier and also has no strategies to be vaccinated.