News

Actions

Olympic champ may skip training over Zika fears

Olympic champ may skip training over Zika fears
Posted
and last updated

LONDON (AP) — Jessica Ennis-Hill's coach says the Olympic heptathlon champion is considering missing a training camp in Brazil for British athletes ahead of the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro over fears about the Zika virus.

Toni Minichiello says Ennis-Hill, who gave birth to her first child in 2014, wants to have more children after the Olympics. Zika has now been proven to cause a range of birth defects, including babies born with abnormally small heads.

Britain has scheduled a training camp in Belo Horizonte for most of the country's Olympic athletes for the week before they travel to Rio.

Minichiello says in Friday's edition of British newspaper The Daily Mail that Ennis-Hill is weighing up other options, including going to the United States, staying in her home city of Sheffield, or heading to another location in Europe.