OCA Top Doctor: 'Around 20' Serious Injuries in Jakarta

(ATR) Some two dozen athletes have been hospitalized at the 2018 Asian Games.

Dr. M. Jegathesan, chair of the Olympic Council of Asia Medical Committee made the announcement following a press conference on Aug. 29 in Jakarta. The exact number of hospitalized athletes could not be determined, he said.

Jegathesan couldn’t comment on specifics of the cases due to medical ethics but he would say Jakarta 2018’s medical operations passed every test.

"Believe me from the beginning until now this system has been put to the test," he said.

Included in the group of "around 20" hospitalized athletes were another two paragliders.

OCA, Jegathesan said, determined the four total paragliding injuries came during the landing, causing "issues on the skeletal system".

"The athletes have been well looked after and will be on the road to recovery."

Today has special significance for Jegathesan. He won the 200-meter sprint at the 1962 Asian Games in Jakarta. Tonight he will present the medals for the winners of the race.

"They remembered," Jegathesan quipped.

Injuries are not the only malady affecting athletes at the Asian Games. Kyodo News reported that multiple members of the Japanese sailing team were competing with fever and diarrhea after ingesting water from Jakarta Bay.

"I had a temperature of 39.2 C and sailed while I was semi-conscious," Shingen Furuya, who races in the men's 49er class, said of his illness.

Sailors reportedly said that efforts to boost immune systems before the Asian Games were done by the team. Japan previously competed at the Asian sailing championships in Jakarta, where according to Kyodo, one sailor was rendered incapacitated by illness.

Written by Ed Hula III with additional reporting by Aaron Bauer

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