By Eurohoops team/ info@eurohoops.net
Zalgiris Kaunas announced that center Joffrey Lauvergne tested positive for COVID-19. The player is currently asymptomatic and isolated at his home. So far this is the seventh confirmed COVID-19 case that concerns a EuroLeague player after the start of the season. Barcelona head coach Sarunas Jasikevicius and assistant Darius Maskoliunas are also two more team members of a EuroLeague side to test positive.
Per Zalgiris:
Zalgiris is traveling to Russia for their EuroLeague Round 2 game against Khimki Moscow Region without Joffrey Lauvergne. The Frenchman will stay behind in Kaunas, as one of his COVID-19 tests came back positive.
Zalgiris’ players and staff are often tested for COVID-19. The tests were done before and after the trip to Greece, last week and all the results for Zalgiris members came back negative.
With the game against Khimki approaching, one more test was done on Wednesday. Zalgiris was informed about negative results on Thursday morning. Nevertheless, just before leaving Lithuania, another report was received, stating that there was an error in Lauvergne’s test result and it was in fact positive.
Lauvergne was immediately isolated from the rest of the team and all safety measures were taken. Additional testing was done for the rest of the players and staff, and the results came back negative for everyone.
Lauvergne will be tested once again on Friday. He is not feeling any COVID-19 symptoms and is isolating at home. Marek Blazevic will replace him in Zalgiris’ final roster in Moscow.
The entire staff and roster will be once again tested after coming back from the road trip.
Zalgiris‘ next game in the Betsafe-LKL will be a road game in Kedainiai, followed by two EuroLeague games the next week. Zalgiris is set to take on Crvena Zvezda on Tuesday, and are set for their home opener against Anadolu Efes on Thursday.