Czech cyclist Michal Schlegel tests positive for COVID-19 one day ahead of Olympic opening ceremony
22 July 2021
Czech road cyclist Michal Schlegel has tested positive for COVID-19 and will no longer be able to participate in Saturday's road race, the Czech Olympic Committee announced in a statement Thursday.
What they're saying: Schlegel is "[t]he fourth athlete and the sixth Czech member of the team, who did not avoid a positive test for COVID-19 at the Tokyo Olympics..."
- The news comes just one day ahead of the Olympic opening ceremony, which health experts fear could become a superspreader event.
The big picture: Schlegel is currently in isolation at the hotel for cyclists in Tokyo.
- Czech beach volleyball player Ondřej Perušič, table tennis player Pavel Širuček and beach volleyball player Markéta Nausch have also tested positive for COVID-10.
- The Czech Olympic Committee has launched an investigation into the potential spread of the virus aboard the charter flight to Tokyo last week, the statement notes.
- "Prime Minister Andrej Babiš has described the situation as a scandal and unfair to the athletes," per Radio Prague International.
Transcripts show George Floyd told police "I can't breathe" over 20 times
Section2Newly released transcripts of bodycam footage from the Minneapolis Police Department show that George Floyd told officers he could not breathe more than 20 times in the moments leading up to his death.
Why it matters: Floyd's killing sparked a national wave of Black Lives Matter protests and an ongoing reckoning over systemic racism in the United States. The transcripts "offer one the most thorough and dramatic accounts" before Floyd's death, The New York Times writes.
The state of play: The transcripts were released as former officer Thomas Lane seeks to have the charges that he aided in Floyd's death thrown out in court, per the Times. He is one of four officers who have been charged.
- The filings also include a 60-page transcript of an interview with Lane. He said he "felt maybe that something was going on" when asked if he believed that Floyd was having a medical emergency at the time.
What the transcripts say:
- Floyd told the officers he was claustrophobic as they tried to get him into the squad car.
- The transcripts also show Floyd saying, "Momma, I love you. Tell my kids I love them. I'm dead."
- Former officer Derek Chauvin, who had his knee on Floyd's neck for over eight minutes, told Floyd, "Then stop talking, stop yelling, it takes a heck of a lot of oxygen to talk."
Read the transcripts via DocumentCloud.