Badminton World Federation (BWF) can provide an explanation on the incident involving India player Kidambi Srikanth at the YONEX Thailand Open, part of the Asian Leg of the HSBC BWF World Tour.

On Tuesday, the player indicated he suffered a nose bleed following a mandatory PCR test. A doctor from COVID-19 testing team located at the hotel attended to Kidambi shortly after.

Badminton Association of Thailand (BAT) issued this statement:

The athlete had been swabbed three times earlier with the most recent one possibly causing irritation and fragility of the capillaries.

Therefore, when the swab was repeated on Tuesday, and factoring in the athlete’s tense nature, the position of the stick in the nasal passage was misaligned, which caused the slight bleeding noticed from the tip of the swab.

The COVID-19 staff member did not notice any bleeding from the athlete’s nose and there was no complaint from Kidambi at that point.

After about three to five minutes, another athlete from the India team reported that Kidambi had a nosebleed.

It is not known whether the athlete had blown his nose or stuck tissue up his nostrils which could have caused more blood vessels to rupture.

Badminton Association of Thailand, Thonburi Healthcare Group and the Ministry of Public Health have a strict COVID-19 prevention policy to do the nasal passage swab as often as every three to four days for early detection to reassure the athletes and their entourage to stay COVID-19 free throughout the tournament.

BWF continues to work with BAT and the Thai health authorities to ensure the safest and most comfortable conditions for all players and participants.