The French armies claim to have received no report of illness that could “a posteriori” resemble Covid-19 from French military athletes upon their return from the World Military Summer Games, organized in October in Wuhan, reacting to the testimony of a French athlete believing that she was contaminated during these Games.
Modern pentathlon world champion Elodie Clouvel, 31, recently said in an interview that she no doubt caught the new coronavirus during these Games organized in China in the city which then turned out to be the cradle of the global epidemic .
According to her, other athletes returned sick. She also says that she was in “recent” contact with a military doctor who did not rule out Covid-19 contamination.
“There have been no cases within the French delegation of the World Military Games, declared to the Health Service of the flu arm or hospitalization during and upon return of the JMME, which can be related, a posteriori , to cases of Covid-19 “, reacted the ministry for the Armed forces, which does not specify if the young woman was or not in contact with military doctors to be tested or to compare its symptoms of the time with those of the new coronavirus.
“The French delegation benefited from medical follow-up, before and during the games, with a dedicated medical team made up of almost twenty staff,” added the ministry, noting that “when the World Military Games summer (JMME) took place from October 18 to 27, 2019, in Wuhan in China, the epidemic linked to Covid-19 was then not known “and that” the first case of Covid-19 was not reported by China to the WHO, as of December 31, 2019 “.
The modern pentathlon world champion Elodie Clouvel affirmed during an interview at the end of March with the local chain Television Loire 7, exhumed by Le Parisien, that she thought she had been contaminated with her companion Valentin Belaud, pentathlete also, during these Games in which they participated in the French delegation.
AFP was able to consult two versions of this interview online, including one where the part in question was cut.
“I think that with Valentin we already had the coronavirus, well the Covid-19 because we were in Wuhan for the World Military Games at the end of October. And in fact, it turns out that after the World Military Games all got sick with the same symptoms. Valentin missed three days of training. I was sick too. I had a big conjunctivitis (…) it was so weird… I had stuff that I haven’t had before “.
“We weren’t more worried than that because we weren’t talking about it yet but it’s true that we were coming back from Wuhan and that’s when the virus developed and we started talking about it, “she adds.
“There are a lot of athletes from the World Military Games in particular who were very sick. We had contact with the military doctor recently who told us + I think you had it because there are a lot of people who have been sick from this delegation, “said the athlete.
“To date and to our knowledge, no other country represented at JMME in Wuhan has reported any such cases,” said the ministry.