Hockey-Spain ladies’s coach Lock confined to lodge after constructive COVID take a look at

TOKYO, Jul 28 (Reuters) – Spain’s women’s hockey coach Adrian Lock expected to shout instructions to his players from the sidelines at the Tokyo Olympics but instead watched their progress on a laptop in a quarantine hotel following a positive COVID-19 Test.

Briton Lock’s saliva test result came half an hour before he was due to get on the team bus early Sunday for a game against Australia.

“We’re still doing exactly the same team meetings to prepare for the games,” Lock told Reuters on Tuesday via WhatsApp.

“I’m just stuck in a hotel room.

“The biggest difference is during the games themselves. Instead of sitting on the bench, I watch the game on the stream and have contact with the coach.”

Lock said he needed a four-way phone call with other staff so that he could train the team during the games.

That’s exactly what he did on Wednesday when the Spaniards won their first game at the Tokyo Olympics, beat New Zealand 2-1.

At a post-game press conference that Lock video-called, he said he could hear the game in real time, but his video feed was delayed by 40 seconds, making the closing stages “nerve-wracking”.

Spanish captain Maria Lopez Garcia said it was a shame Lock couldn’t take part in the game.

“I think he’s suffering a lot. He would like to join us in all of these games because we’ve been working for four years,” she said.

Lock had said Tuesday that Spanish medical officials thought the positive saliva test might have been due to testing positive for the virus in June, about a week after his second dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

“I don’t really have COVID now,” he said. “It’s just the remains of COVID that have been in my system since I last had it. It is not a new infection. “

All other members of the roster had tested negative for COVID-19 every day, Lock said, adding that Spanish medical officials were working to bring his case to the International Olympic Committee’s COVID-19 experts.

Reporting by Daniel Leussink; Adaptation by Peter Rutherford and Ed Osmond

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