Sports
Mikaela Mayer Withdraws from Fight vs. Helen Joseph After Positive COVID-19 Test
Steve Marcus/Getty ImagesBoxer Mikaela Mayer announced on Instagram Sunday that she would not be fighting Helen Joseph during Tuesday’s Top Rank boxing card after testing positive for COVID-19. “It came as a complete surprise. I am currently asymptomatic and am quarantining at an off-site location per recommended guidelines,” she wrote. “The rest of my team tested negative and they…
Steve Marcus/Getty Images
Boxer Mikaela Mayer announced on Instagram Sunday that she would not be fighting Helen Joseph during Tuesday's Top Rank boxing card after testing positive for COVID-19.
“It came as a complete surprise. I am currently asymptomatic and am quarantining at an off-site location per recommended guidelines,” she wrote. “The rest of my team tested negative and they are all in good health. I was really looking forward to bringing back boxing for all of you and I'm disappointed for myself, my team, my supporters and for my opponent, Helen Joseph, who worked just as hard to be here this week and put on a show for everyone.”
Once a boxer tests positive for the coronavirus, they are immediately taken off the Top Rank card and quarantined.
“The bottom line is if someone comes up positive on their test, there's no retest,” Top Rank COO Brad Jacobs said in May, per Michael Rothstein of ESPN. “There's no ‘Oh man, the thing was wrong.' You're done. Very simple.”
Mayer (12-0) had been training in Houston ahead of her fight with Joseph and said in May that it concerned her when the gym where she was training, Main Street Boxing, had reopened to the public.
“Super weird and a little nerve-racking because all of a sudden the gym is packed with younger people and I'm like, ‘How safe are these young people being before they come into this gym,'” she said at the time. “Even though I wasn't quarantined at home like a lot of people were, locked in their house, I was on the road doing things, I was very cautious.”
Mayer said she took as many precautions as possible, including sanitizing her hands, not touching her face and trying to limit her exposure to folks other than her coaches and sparring partner.
Her last fight, scheduled against Melissa Hernandez in March, was also canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mayer's manager, George Ruiz, told Rothstein that “Top Rank wants to get her back in the ring as soon as possible.”
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