A video is being circulated on social networks that shows Slovenian Dalila Jakupovic unable to continue playing due to breathing problems. Internet users associate this with vaccination against COVID-19. We have verified the accuracy of the video.
The Open Championship traditionally takes place in January. Australia - one of the four Grand Slam tournaments, the largest and most prestigious competitions among tennis players. In 2022, the organizers obliged all participants to be vaccinated against COVID-19. Few players were released from this commitment for good reasons, among them world ranking leader Novak Djokovic. However, unlike the tournament organizers, the Australian authorities didn't consider his medical clearance is a sufficient condition for entry into the country and deported the first racket of the world from Australia, which provoked a scandal.
At the same time, a video with the participation of Slovenian tennis player Dalila Jakupovic began to be distributed on social networks. The camera captured how the athlete first begins to breathe heavily, and then lies down directly on the court. In some Facebook posts, users directly tied up what happened with vaccination, authors of Russian-language publications described the situation is more evasive: “Strange things are happening at a tennis tournament in Australia, in no way connected with the reason why someone was expelled from the country.” Similar publications can be discover and on VKontakte.
Internet users distributing the video and linking what was captured on it with vaccination against coronavirus were not embarrassed that Yakupovich not mentioned among the participants in the Australian Open 2022. According to the Women's Tennis Association (WTA), the last time the 30-year-old athlete participated in official competitions last November, when she came to a small tournament in Estonia. Judging by Instagram posts, when the participants flew to Australia on the eve of the championship in Melbourne, Yakupovich was in Dubai.
How found out our colleagues at AFP Fact Check, this footage was actually filmed two years earlier. January 14, 2020 similar video published British edition of The Guardian. Although the coronavirus was already spreading, before the World Health Organization declared a pandemic left about two months, and until started mass vaccination in developed countries has been almost a year.
The reason for the breathing problems that forced Jakupovic to withdraw from the Australian Open qualifying match the year before was not vaccination. At the turn of 2019 and 2020 in Australia raged largest forest fires, due to which the tournament organizers had to postpone training sessions on open courts and even a number of games. Despite the measures taken, Yakupovich I couldn't finish his match due to breathing problems caused by poor air quality in Melbourne.
Fake
- AFP Fact Check. Video does not show 'tennis player collapsing at Australian Open after vaccination'
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