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Covid-19: the world of sport also turned upside down by the Omicron variant

2021-11-29T19:29:45.604Z


The panic surrounding the onset of the Omicron variant also affects sports. The first cancellations of competitions fell alo


The initial reaction was to smile or be indignant, it depends.

Now, the episode has above all a tendency to worry.

Saturday evening, the modest Lisbon football team of Belenenses found itself in an ubiquitous situation: deprived of fourteen players due to Covid-19, as well as its coach and several members of its technical staff, it had lined up nine players , before being reduced to… six.

The meeting was then stopped on the green carpet, without us really knowing how the farce could have lasted a little more than half time.

This Monday, we learned that the Omicron variant was in fact at the origin of this huge source of contamination (13 players affected), the first discovered in the country.

Which raises the question of the fulgurance with which this new version of Covid-19 tends to spread.

Read alsoCovid-19 and Omicron variant: follow our live

Obviously, the world of sport is worried just like the rest of the planet.

He too will have to adapt to this new particularly feared epidemic episode.

While the conditions for entry into the territories are starting to tighten, from Japan to Australia (total closure) via Europe, many competitions could come to a standstill in the coming weeks.

As a precaution first, then out of necessity if the suspicions about its seriousness and its resistance to vaccines are proven.

Already cancellations

Example among others, the 9th round of the Cyclo-cross World Cup, scheduled for next Sunday in Antwerp (Belgium), has just been canceled, as has the World Squash Championships which were to take place in Malaysia from December 7 to 12. . Visa policies, from one country to another, make the job of the organizers very complicated.

In France, the return of the mask to all sports venues seems inevitable in France.

This was already the case this weekend in Ligue 1 in Lens, Saint-Etienne and Lorient - without this being seriously respected - by order of the prefect.

The return of spectator gauges cannot be ruled out either.

Sign of the ambient anxiety, the German government has just estimated "difficult to understand" the influx of 50,000 supporters without a mask this weekend in Cologne for the Rhine derby against Mönchengladbach (4-1).

Athletes stranded in South Africa

More urgently, there is also the question of the repatriation of athletes currently stranded in South Africa, the country where Omicron was officially detected for the first time. Four rugby teams (the Italians from Zebre, the Irish from Munster and the Welsh from Cardiff and the Scarlets) were unable to leave the territory on Sunday, after positive cases of Covid-19 in their teams. According to the Irish sports minister, Munster received authorization Monday evening to return to Ireland.

Among a contingent of Romanian nationals waiting to be evacuated, there are also 31 players and members of the technical staff of a rugby team who were participating in an international tournament.

About fifteen British and Irish golfers present in Johannesburg for a tournament were able to escape quarantine on Friday.

They had chosen as a precaution to withdraw to return to their soil in time.

Finally, it is impossible not to think of the Winter Olympics which will begin in Beijing in two months and five days (February 4-February 20).

The country wants to limit the risk of contamination at all costs and practices a health policy that aims for "zero infection".

Source: leparis

All sports articles on 2021-11-29

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