By withdrawing, COVID-positive Crabb saved Gibb's Olympics
TOKYO (AP) - At 45, Jake Gibb is almost certainly at his last Summer Games. And yet the four-time Olympian offered to give it up for the remote chance that Taylor Crabb could have the experience even once.
"At the end, Jake and (coach Rich Lambourne) told me it was my decision to make. They´ll stick by me whatever I want to do," said Crabb, who tested positive for COVID-19 and withdrew from the Olympics so that Gibb could replace him on two-person beach volleyball team.
"I was not going to risk this opportunity for Jake and Rich," Crabb told The Associated Press. "This is Jake´s last year. This is everything he´s worked for. I want him to go out on top. This is our goal coming into it. And I want to see him fulfill that."
Although he was vaccinated, asymptomatic and had provided the required negative results before boarding his flight, Crabb came back positive during intake testing on Sunday after arriving in Tokyo. He continued to submit samples, hoping for a negative test that would have allowed him to return to the Games, but he withdrew on Thursday night, hours before the deadline for the U.S. governing body to submit its roster.
Alternate Tri Bourne was to join Gibb on the sand on Sunday night for their first match, against Italy.
Crabb told the AP from his quarantine hotel in Tokyo that Gibb offered to forfeit the first match and even the second one, on Wednesday, on the chance that the extra time would allow the Olympic first-timer to provide the negative tests that would have allowed him to play.
FILE - In this Aug. 8, 2016, file photo, Jake Gibb, of the United States, waits to be introduced to the crowd for a men's beach volleyball match against Austria at the Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. American beach volleyball player Taylor Crabb is out of the Olympics after several positive COVID-19 tests, and Tri Bourne will take his place as the partner of four-time Olympian Gibb when the competition begins at Tokyo's Shiokaze Park this weekend. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)
Two losses to start the Olympics almost certainly would have doomed their chances of moving on to the knockout round. But there also was no guarantee that Crabb would have gotten out of quarantine in time for the third and final match of the round robin.
"There was a risk of me still having dead virus in me and testing positive," he said. "And if there was a 1% chance that I would test positive and ruin this moment for our team, I was not going to let that happen."
Instead, Crabb has been in his hotel room for more than 23 hours a day, FaceTiming with friends and family until he will be allowed to board a plane, perhaps as early as Tuesday night. He also has been helping his former team scout opponents.
"It still makes me feel important and part of the team, which is huge for me," he said. "Because if I didn´t have that, along with the devastation of not being able to play with them, that would have been worse for sure."
___
More AP Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/Olympics and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
FILE - In this Sept. 21, 2014, file photo, Tri Bourne makes a dig as he and John Hyden played Casey Patterson and Jake Gibb during the AVP Championships beach volleyball match at Huntington Beach, Calif. American beach volleyball player Taylor Crabb is out of the Olympics after several positive COVID-19 tests, and Bourne will take his place as the partner of four-time Olympian Jake Gibb when the competition begins at Tokyo's Shiokaze Park this weekend. (Kyusung Gong/The Orange County Register, File)
