Olympian Luke Gebbie to miss SEA Games after testing positive for COVID-19

Filipino Olympian and swimmer Luke Gebbie will miss the 31st Southeast Asian Games in Vietnam due to COVID-19.

According to a release by the Philippine Sports Commission and the Philippine Olympic Committee (POC) on Saturday, Gebbie tested positive in the RT-PCR test in time for his entry to Hanoi.

The Olympian, who missed the bus for the qualifying heats in Tokyo, had a silver medal in the 4x100 meter freestyle relay and a bronze in the 50-meter freestyle competition in the 2019 edition of the biennial meet.

POC president Bambol Tolentino considered the unfortunate event as one less potential gold for the Philippines.

“Too bad he tested positive,” Tolentino said in a statement. “That’s one less medal—a potential gold at that—in our campaign.”

Prior to the Hanoi games, three other Filipino athletes tested positive for the infectious disease, but were cleared after a retest early last week.

Gebbie was supposed to be one of the 16-person delegation of the aquatics team to the regional tourney.

—Justin Kenneth Carandang/JMB, GMA News