[Source: stuff.co.nz]

Samoa will not be competing at the Olympic Games which starts later this month.

The decision was made by Samoa’s caretaker government, however, according to Radio New Zealand, the team has not been officially notified of any withdrawal.

RNZ reports the caretaker Cabinet decided to prevent Team Samoa from travelling to Japan due to COVID-19.

The caretaker Minister of Communications, Afamasaga Rico Tupa’i, said that with reports Japan has a 500 daily infection rate, the Cabinet decided prevention takes precedence.

Afamasaga said the decision was made because the chance of infection was too high.

However, Samoa’s Olympic committee said today that it was only withdrawing its weightlifting team from the Tokyo Games.

The committee’s president, Patrick Fepuleai, told Reuters that Samoa’s other athletes who were already overseas would attend.

Samoa had earlier selected athletes from several sports including weightlifting, boxing, sailing and athletics.

[Source: RNZ]