Jon Rahm Out of Olympics After Testing Positive for COVID-19

World No. 1 will miss competing for Spain in Olympics. Rahm's result follows a positive COVID test from Bryson DeChambeau, and both players will miss the Tokyo Olympics.

Jeff Ritter | Jul 25, 2021

Jon Rahm Out of Olympics After Testing Positive for COVID-19 /

The men's Olympic golf competition will be staged without the No. 1 men's golfer in the world.

Jon Rahm has been withdrawn from the Olympics after testing positive for COVID-19 shortly before he was set to depart for Tokyo. The International Golf Federation made the announcement just hours after Bryson DeChambeau was removed from the U.S. Olympic team for his own positive COVID test.

It is the Spaniard's second positive COVID test of the summer. On June 5, Rahm was leading the Memorial Tournament by six shots after three rounds when he was informed of a positive test result behind the 18th green and immediately withdrawn from the event. That result likely cost Rahm a payday of more than $1 million.

This latest positive test result costs him a chance to compete for a gold medal.

Rahm, 26, bounced back from that setback at the Memorial by winning his next event, the U.S. Open, for his first major title. This week he will not be replaced on the Spanish Olympic team, as Spain's Olympic committee said there was not enough time to find a substitute. Adri Arnaus will be Spain's lone competitor when the men's competition begins Thursday.

More Olympic Coverage on Morning Read

- Bryson DeChambeau Tests Positive for COVD-19, Out of Olympics
- Jon Rahm Out of Olympics After Positive COVID Test
- Don't Underestimate the Power of Olympics, or the Golfers Competing in Them

Published Jul 25, 2021

JEFF RITTER

Jeff Ritter is the managing director of SI Golf. He has more than 20 years of sports media experience, and previously was the general manager at the Morning Read, where he led that business's growth and joined SI as part of an acquisition in 2022. Earlier in his career he spent more than a decade at SI and Golf Magazine, and his journalism awards include a MIN Magazine Award and an Edward R. Murrow Award for sports reporting. He received a bachelor's degree from the University of Michigan and a master's from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.