American Sam Kendricks tested positive for covid on site during the last Olympics.
Photo: Simon Hastegård/Bildbyrån
Armand Duplantis won the Olympics in Tokyo.
Foto: MARTIN RICKETT / STELLA PICTURES / PA
Sam Kendricks was seen as Armand Duplanti’s main challenger for the gold at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.
But Kendricks never got a chance to jump for the medals.
The American tested positive for covid on site in the Olympic village and missed the championship.
This summer, the 31-year-old can get another chance, if he qualifies for the Olympics in Paris.
During Sunday’s final at the Indoor WC in Glasgow, Kendricks was the one who most clearly pressured Duplantis in the battle for gold. After the competition, the American met several different media in the mixed zone.
On a question from Dagens Nyheter, about a possible Olympic duel with Armand Duplantis in Paris, the American suddenly lights up.
“We should not be treated like that”
– I want to say that I hate the Olympics now, because they threw me out in 2021! They don’t treat people well, I like the WC better than the Olympics. But I like the competition, otherwise I would have withdrawn from the Olympics a long time ago.
What Kendricks is turning against is the quarantine situation that affected those infected with covid during the games in Toyko.
Before the Games, the International Olympic Committee went out with information to all countries that athletes who tested positive for covid during the Olympics risked up to ten days of isolation in special quarantine hotels, and what the conditions were like there.
– I don’t think we should be treated the way we were, says Kendricks.
But you say you were kicked out, that’s not quite right, is it?
– The natural thing is that if you are sick, you get access to a doctor, fresh air and food. This is how we treat our masters when we go somewhere. We might get thrown out of the competition, that’s not the fight I’m taking. The problem is how I was treated. Separated from everyone. The mental in it. It is a textbook example of holding someone against their will. We are expected to say we accept it, to hell with it. I would never say that, and never do it again. If they have a new corona restriction or zika or another “boogeyman” (roughly “a ghost”, editor’s note), then I won’t go.
It can probably be perceived as controversial to call covid the “boogeyman”, do you mean that it wasn’t real?
– Do I think it was real, or do I think the treatment was worth the sacrifice? I’m holding this against Team USA. Nobody got me home.
During the Tokyo Olympics, it was stated to be “unclear” if Kendricks was vaccinated. Now the American confirms that he did not take any vaccine – and that in turn caused him to miss the Indoor WC in Belgrade in 2022.
– I don’t need a vaccine, that’s why they didn’t let me in in 2022. But that’s how sport is, half of it is politics.
