Dutch skateboarder Candy Jacobs expressed her heartache on Wednesday after testing positive for COVID-19, ruling her out of the Olympic Games, and took solace in the fact that her teammates would still be able to compete.
“I am heartbroken,” she said on her Instagram account. “Luckily we’ve been following the protocols so my fellow skateboarders still get to shine bright.”
The Dutch Olympic team said Jacobs had been placed in a 10-day quarantine. In a statement, it added that its medical advisers have continuously been in contact with the athlete.
“It is Candy’s worst nightmare,” the delegation’s Chef de Mission Pieter van den Hoogenband said in the statement.
“TeamNL and Candy will do everything to respect the rules here and follow all the necessary instructions from Tokyo2020. We are very pleased that the rest of the team can continue in the Olympics,” he added.
Skateboarding is making its Olympic debut at the Tokyo Games.
Jacobs started in the sport at age 13 after her mother dropped her off at a local skatepark. Now 31, the Dutch street rider was recovering from knee surgery earlier this year, which she said altered her ideas around the sport.
“We are the first generation to learn how an event of that scale can affect your perception of and approach to skateboarding,” she said last year.
