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Top golfers Day, McIlroy among athletes skipping Olympics over Zika fears
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Top golfers Jason Day and Rory McIlroy headline a list of athletes who have said they will not compete in the upcoming Rio de Janeiro Olympics because of fears about the Zika virus.
A number of athletes have expressed concern about Zika’s link to birth defects, saying they are unwilling to jeopardize the health of their family for a chance to compete in Rio.
“Even though the risk of infection from the Zika virus is considered low, it is a risk nonetheless and a risk I am unwilling to take,” McIlroy, who is ranked No. 4 in the world, said in a statement. McIlroy said he was putting the health of himself and his family above everything else by not playing for the Irish team. The four-time major champion said last month that he and his fiancee might want to start a family “over the next couple of years” and did not want to put that at risk.
Day, the No. 1-ranked men’s player in the world, said he was opting not to play for Australia in August because of “the potential risks [Zika] may present to my wife’s future pregnancies and to future members of our family.” The couple have two children and would like to have more, Day said.
Zika infection during pregnancy can cause microcephaly and other serious birth defects, according to the CDC, and it has been linked to Guillain-Barré syndrome in adults. Brazil, which has been at the center of the current outbreak, has seen most of the Zika-related cases of fetal malformations that have occurred worldwide.
Zika is primarily spread through the bite of an infected Aedes mosquito, but also can be transmitted sexually and has been detected in semen 62 days after the onset of symptoms. The CDC recommends that people who have traveled to areas where the virus is being actively transmitted, as in Brazil, wait at least 8 weeks before trying to become pregnant, whether they are symptomatic or not. Men experiencing symptoms should wait at least 6 months, the CDC said.
Golf is returning to the Olympics for the first time in 112 years. In Rio, the tournament will be played on a course that was built for the occasion. But Day and McIlroy are not the only ones who will pass up the chance to win a medal out of an abundance of caution.
Another Irish golfer, Shane Lowry, Australian golfer Marc Leishman, and American cyclist Tejay van Garderen, all said they would not compete in Rio due to concerns about Zika.
“Top athletes need to concentrate on their game, and if they’re preoccupied with other concerns, it’s likely to affect their performance,” Stephen S. Morse, PhD, professor of epidemiology at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and director of the university’s infectious disease epidemiology certificate program, told Infectious Disease News. “Others may come to a different conclusion for themselves. Both are perfectly right. Everyone has a different comfort level with these risks, and should make the decision that seems appropriate for them.”
Despite mounting pressure from experts, WHO has declared there is “no public health justification” to postpone or move the Olympics out of Brazil considering that Zika has already spread globally, and Rio organizers have predicted that only one or two tourists would contract the virus during the games in August while the weather in Rio is cooler, drier and less favorable for mosquitoes. – by Gerard Gallagher
- Reference:
- RioOlympicsLater.org. Open letter to Dr. Margaret Chan, director-general, WHO. 2016. https://www.rioolympicslater.org/?_ga=1.242106626.1486921497.1466698558. Accessed June 23, 2016.
Disclosure: Morse reports no relevant financial disclosures.