The Minister Delegate for Sports threw a stone in the pond in an interview broadcast on the antenna of France Info.
Roxana Maracineanu does not rule out the possibility that the French Open at Roland Garros, which should take place from May 17 to June 6, may be postponed to a later date.
This possible postponement would of course be the consequence of the Covid-19 pandemic and the very probable impossibility by mid-May of receiving all the expected crowd in the enclosure.
The minister wants to give the public a chance to discover the new Roland-Garros without waiting for 2022.
“We are in discussion with the organizers of Roland-Garros, said the minister on public radio, to see if it is necessary to change the date so that it falls towards a possible resumption of all sporting practice and major events.
Although high-level sport is preserved, we try, including in professional sport, to limit the chances of clustering and the spread of the virus.
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"We are studying lots of options for Roland-Garros 2021"
This postponement option is not ruled out by the French Tennis Federation, which swears to study all possible options, except for outright cancellation: "We are studying lots of options for Roland-Garros 2021, promised in the week its new president Gilles Moretton.
There is the total range ... or almost total because I dare not imagine a 100% gauge.
But the gauge can go from behind closed doors to a gauge that will not be 100%.
All options with us are ready.
We meet all the players regularly and we wait to see how things will turn out.
For the moment, we are in the race, the tournament is on the scheduled date.
But if we are told of general confinement for two months, we will necessarily have to take measures.
The worst being the outright cancellation, but I dare not imagine that.
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Already in 2020, Roland-Garros had suffered the wrath of the Covid and postponed its dates from September 27 to October 11, without this disturbing Rafael Nadal, winner for the 13th time.
A few days ago, as a reminder, Paris-Roubaix was postponed from April 11 to October 3.
Also on France Info, Roxana Maracineanu also gave an update on the return of the public to the stadiums, promising that “experiments” will take place before the month of May: “Many clubs have contacted the Ministry of Sports, she said. .
We explained to them the protocol, which must be based on a willingness of a health organization to test the spread of the virus in a gathering around a sport or a concert, as well as the conditions and constraints of these experiments.
We did not have a lot of candidates behind, given the specifications, said the minister.
In places where it is maintained, we will do it before it resumes in May.
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