TOKYO — U.S. beach volleyball player Taylor Crabb has tested positive for COVID-19 and will likely miss the Olympic Games, the Southern California News Group has learned.
Crabb tested positive shortly after arriving in Japan over the weekend, according to a person familiar with the situation. The former NCAA player of the year for Long Beach State and two-time AVP tour MVP becomes the first Team USA athlete scheduled to compete in Tokyo to test positive for COVID-19. Kara Eaker, an alternate on the gymnastics team, tested positive earlier in the week.
Tri Bourne, a former USC standout, is expected to be named Crabb’s replacement. Bourne arrived in Tokyo Wednesday and was undergoing processing, including a COVID-19 test, at Narita International Airport. Bourne’s normal playing partner is Crabb’s brother Trevor.
Crabb, 29, and his partner Jake Gibb, 45, were scheduled to play Italy’s Enrico Rossi and Adrian Carambula in an Olympic Games preliminary phase match on Sunday night at Shiokaze Park next to Tokyo Bay. Taylor Crabb has been in isolation in a local hotel away from the rest of the U.S. team since testing positive.
Czech beach volleyball player Ondřej Perušič has also tested positive for COVID-19 and will miss his opening match.
Seventy-nine people connected to the Olympic Games have tested positive for COVID-19, including six athletes, in the Tokyo area since July 1, according to Tokyo 2020 records. One unnamed athlete tested positive on Tuesday Japan time and was placed in a 14-day quarantine. Another unnamed athlete was placed in a 14-day quarantine Wednesday in Japan, according to Tokyo 2020 records.
USA Volleyball were detained at the airport for 18 hours after arriving in Tokyo Sunday and required to take a second COVID-19 test. Hours later Gibb trained in Tokyo without Crabb. Another U.S. beach player Nick Lucena was also seen training without his playing partner Phil Dalhausser. Dalhausser was scheduled to be on the same flight as Crabb. Dalhausser has been cleared to play this weekend, SCNG has confirmed.
The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee did not respond to a request for comment.
The confirmation of Crabb’s positive test came just hours after SCNG published a special report detailing how his participation in the Tokyo Games would not have been possible had an arbitrator not reduced his 2019 USA Volleyball suspension through September 2021 for violating a previous ban for misconduct involving a minor age girl.
Previously unreported USA Volleyball documents obtained by SCNG detail both Crabb’s initial suspension in 2017 and the USA Volleyball board of directors’ unanimous decision in May 2019 to extend the suspension through Sept. 28, 2021. The second decision came after he breached a settlement agreement for the first suspension by coaching at a camp for junior girls. The board’s decision was made with the clear realization that it would prevent Crabb from competing in the Tokyo Olympics, originally scheduled for 2020.
“USAV understands the proposed suspension will prohibit Mr. Crabb from participating in the 2020 Olympic Games,” Rachael Stafford, USA Volleyball’s in-house counsel wrote in a May 14, 2019 email to the board of directors. “Under the circumstances, USAV feels this is the only appropriate action.”
The documents also reveal USA Volleyball’s repeated concerns about protecting minor age girls from “misconduct” by Crabb, a former national collegiate player of the year at Long Beach State and two-time MVP on the AVP beach circuit.
“Specifically, it is this kind of activity that Mr. Crabb was prohibited from doing because USAV desired to protect its junior girl participants,” Stafford wrote to the board, referring to his appearance at the girls camp in May 2019.
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