A pleasure to have the opportunity to document … for Australian Associated Press (AAP) … the departure of just on half Australia’s Olympic squad as they left the country for the Tokyo Games at Cairns International Airport on Saturday. Sadly I wasn’t on the flight with them …
The QANTAS charter aircraft was chokers with about 280 face masked athletes and officials from the swimming, rowing, hockey, water polo, beach volleyball, table tennis, weightlifting and badminton teams on board. Amongst the masked throng was Australia’s ‘Madam Butterfly’ Gold medalist Susie O’Neill (fourth image below) … currently Deputy Chefs de Missions for the Tokyo Olympic Games.
Disturbingly, shortly after the aircraft lifted off from the Cairns runway the news dropped that an official had tested positive for COVID-19 at the Tokyo Olympics athletes’ village. A worrying development for the team.
Below are just over a handful of the pics I made of the athletes departure for the (2020 or 2021 ?) Tokyo Olympic Games … the complete set of 45 images may be found on the AAP site HERE.
Images © AAP/Brian Cassey
