List of athletes not attending the 2016 Summer Olympics due to Zika virus concerns explained

A number of sportspeople eligible for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro stated that they would not attend because of the ongoing Zika virus epidemic in Brazil. In the case of golf and tennis, media speculated that some absentees were unenthusiastic about competing in any case and used Zika as a convenient excuse.^{[1] [2]}

Table

Sport	Athlete	Nat	Ref
Cycling	Tejay van Garderen
Golf	Jason Day
Golf	Branden Grace		^[3]
Golf	Dustin Johnson
Golf	Shane Lowry
Golf	Rory McIlroy
Golf	Marc Leishman		^[4]
Golf	Charl Schwartzel
Golf	Angelo Que
Golf	Vijay Singh
Golf	Jordan Spieth
Golf	Graeme McDowell		^[5]
Tennis	Milos Raonic		^[6]
Tennis	Tomas Berdych
Tennis	Alexandr Dolgopolov		^[7]
Tennis	Bob & Mike Bryan
Tennis	Simona Halep
Tennis	Karolína Plíšková

See also

• List of athletes not attending the 2020 Summer Olympics due to COVID-19 concerns
• List of athletes not attending the 2022 Winter Olympics due to COVID-19 concerns

Notes and References

1. News: Rio 2016: Are tennis players using Zika as an excuse?. 21 July 2016. CNN. 13 August 2016.
2. News: Olympics-Golf-Zika an excuse for top ranked players, says Van Zyl. Reuters. 2 August 2016. Yahoo!. 13 August 2016.
3. Web site: Branden Grace joins Olympics absentees due to Zika virus. Sky Sports. 12 January 2020.
4. Web site: Marc Leishman Pulls Out of Olympic Golf Consideration Due to Zika Virus Threat. golf.com.
5. Web site: Graeme McDowell joins McIlroy in pulling out of Rio Olympics due to Zika virus. Hamish. Mackay. 23 June 2016. irishmirror. 12 January 2020.
6. Web site: Milos Raonic withdraws from Rio Olympics citing 'variety of health concerns'. nationalpost.com.
7. http://14.4news.info/alexander-dolgopolov-refused-to-participate-in-the-olympics-for-fear-of-contracting-the-virus-zika/{{dead link|date=December 2017 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}