Track and field teams at the Tokyo Olympics were sent into panic mode after two pole vaulters, including the American Sam Kendricks, tested positive for COVID the day before competition starts. Kendricks, who won the bronze in Rio five years ago and is a two-time world champion, was rushed to an isolation hotel after a positive PCR test, as was the Argentinian vaulter German Chiaraviglio.

The entire 63-strong Australian team, some of whom had trained with Kendricks, were briefly isolated after the news but all were soon cleared. Kendricks’ main Olympic rival, the Swedish world record-holder Armand Duplantis, said he had been planning to meet up with the American on Wednesday. “So that was a pretty lucky dodge right there,” he said. “We are all pretty spooked out right now.”