The South African coach fears his players will have a heart attack in Tokyo

South African coach David Newton expressed today his fear that his team members may be victims of heart disease, as happened with Danish Christian Eriksen in the last European Cup, after a period of isolation in preparation for the Tokyo Olympics scheduled for Friday.

The South African team begins its football matches against host Japan, but the arrival of the mission to the Olympic Village was accompanied by the announcement of three positive cases of the Corona virus for players and a video analyst.

As a result of these positive checks, it was announced on Monday that 21 members of the delegation are potential contacts and were asked to stay in their rooms, which caused them to miss two training sessions.

Coach Notuan fears that the lack of time to adapt to the temperature and humidity in Tokyo will put his players at risk when they arrive on the pitch on Thursday.

So he did not hesitate to cite what happened with Eriksen, who suffered a heart attack at Euro 2020.

"We just have to hope and pray that something like this does not happen to players who have not trained for a long time since we arrived here," Notwan said, expressing his fear that the players would not have "enough time to adapt."

The laws to combat the "Covid-19" pandemic adopted during the Olympic Games stipulate that suspected athletes, as contacts at the Games, must follow strict training procedures and use specific means of transportation.

The South African team will be allowed to play its match against Japan on Thursday, provided that all players have tested negative for the Corona virus six hours before kick-off.

Notuan had confirmed that he had 17 players at his disposal, thanking the organizers for not canceling the match.

In the same context, defender Tercius Malibe added, "It was not easy to return to training" after missing two sessions, but "the players responded well" to the new challenge.

So far, five people have tested positive in the Olympic Village, where the fear of gathering remains.

The last of which was for the coach of the Czech beach volleyball team, Simon Naus, the day after one of his players, Andrej Perošić, contracted the virus.

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