Keemia Yosefi and Shah Mamoud Noorzaye, the two Afghan athletes who will compete in the Tokyo Olympics, left Kabul on Sunday for Japan, Afghanistan’s National Olympic Committee announced. 

The Olympics are scheduled to start on July 23.  

Both Afghan athletes will represent Afghanistan in the 100 meter race in the athletics category and they will be in quarantine until the games kick-off. 

Both athletes have received COVID-19 vaccine ahead of the games. 

Five athletes will represent Afghanistan in the Tokyo Olympics. The three others are Fahim Anwari in swimming, Mahdi Yovari in shooting and Farzad Mansouri in taekwondo. 

The three other athletes will also travel to Japan by July 17 to prepare for the games, said Afghanistan’s National Olympic Committee, adding that they are already in training camps. 

Fahim Anwari has been in Moscow for the past nearly six months and is preparing for the Olympic games while Farzad Mansouri is in Qatar at a training camp. 

Mahdi Yovari is in Swizterland and will travel soon to Japan. 

Already delayed by a year because of the pandemic, the Games are proceeding amid concerns that the influx of thousands of people from around the world could unleash another wave of infections in the country. 

A member of Serbia's Olympic rowing team tested positive for the novel coronavirus on arrival in Japan, an official said on Sunday, the third COVID-19 infection confirmed among Olympic team members, Reuters reported. 

Infection rates are trending higher in the capital, with 716 cases reported on Saturday - the most since late May. 

Japan is yet to set the level of virus countermeasures to be in place during the Games and holding the event without any domestic spectators remains a possibility. 

Amid this uncertainty the result of a ticket lottery has been pushed back to Saturday from Tuesday, organizers announced on Monday.