Srikanth Kidambi suffered a nosebleed after his mandatory Covid-19 test at the ongoing Yonex Thailand Open. The Badminton World Federation (BWF) has issued an official statement regarding the incident.
Yesterday, Srikanth shared on his social media that he got a nosebleed after going through a nasal swab test. He wrote, “We take care of ourselves for the match not to come and shed blood for THIS. However, I gave 4 tests after I have arrived and I can’t say any of them have been pleasant. Unacceptable.”
The incident angered many of his Indian fans.
According to the BWF, he was attended by a doctor from the Covid-19 testing team shortly after.
Through BWF, The Badminton Association of Thailand (BAT) released the following statement.
The athlete had been swabbed three times earlier with the most recent one possibly causing irritation and fragility of the capillaries.
Therefore, when the swab was repeated on Tuesday, and factoring in the athlete’s tense nature, the position of the stick in the nasal passage was misaligned, which caused the slight bleeding noticed from the tip of the swab.
The COVID-19 staff member did not notice any bleeding from the athlete’s nose and there was no complaint from Kidambi at that point.
After about three to five minutes, another athlete from the India team reported that Kidambi had a nosebleed.
It is not known whether the athlete had blown his nose or stuck tissue up his nostrils which could have caused more blood vessels to rupture.
The statement further reiterated that the nasal swab tests were a necessity for the tournaments to continue Covid-19 free.