Two days ago it was announced that Sergei Naidin, a Russian national MAG team member, tested positive for COVID-19. He was among four people with positive results at Novogorsk, the training center where the artistic gymnastics team moved after Round Lake was closed. Naidin was moved to a hospital and will stay there until he tests negative twice in a row. He talked to MK-Sport about the situation:
A: I don’t have any complaints [about my health]. I don’t have any symptoms – no fever, no cough, no nasal congestion. I was brought here because of the results of the first test that I did as soon as we moved from Round Lake to Novogorsk.
Q: How were you told about the test results?
A: We all ate lunch and went to our rooms to rest after the practice. Then a knock on the door – everyone should stay in their rooms, no one is allowed out. Then our team doctor came up and said: “Pack your things, your test showed that you have the virus, the ambulance will come to get you now”. At first, I didn’t even understand – was that a joke? There was nothing – I was training, I got my body temperature taken twice a day, like everyone else, I washed my hands, I didn’t talk to anyone from the outside.
Q: You did the same at Round Lake, right?
A: Yes, there were special measures there as well: the temperature was taken in the morning and in the evening, we didn’t go out much, you can say we were sitting in our rooms. There were no people from the outside.
Q: Perhaps, you came back from somewhere? Were there international competitions?
A: No, I haven’t traveled for a long time, I’ve been at Round Lake since around January.
Q: How does your room at the hospital look?
A: It’s a room for two people. The doctor said the virus takes a long time to manifest, two weeks. On the tenth day, I have to do the first test, this will be on April 8th, and the second one two days after that. If both are negative, I’ll be free two days after that! It would be fine but my parents are shocked. But I calmed them down: I’ll get through it, everything’s fine. The guys are calling and messaging, “How are you?” I respond, “Everything’s fine, don’t panic”. I know that the whole team is quarantined until April 15th. And then, they say, perhaps, we’ll be allowed to go back to Round Lake, if it will be open.
Q: Did you get any guidance from the coaches? You can’t lose your fitness, after all.
A: I exercise twice a day. The body needs it and it distracts me a bit.
Q: How do the exercises look? Do you run around the corridor?
A: No, we’re not allowed in the corridor. I move everything in the room, so that it won’t be in my way. My roommate hasn’t joined me [in exercising] yet. No, he doesn’t look at me in astonishment. He’s not an athlete, he’s around 25 years old, he got there with the same virus manifestations as me – that is, without any. I should get him into sports? Yes, I should try, and we still need to be here for over a week. It’s amazing that we have internet, of course, otherwise, I don’t know, I’d climb the walls out of boredom.
It is important to note that while at Novogorsk, the gymnasts were isolated from the outside world, that was not the case at Round Lake – they were still allowed to go outside the training center and, judging by gymnasts’ social media, they did, so this could be the source of infection.
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