We thought we were done with this but all of a sudden the shadow of Covid is accelerating over the sporting horizon.
Munster Rugby is stuck in South Africa after one of the group tested positive, making a likely tough journey home and subsequent quarantine harder again. Cardiff Blues are in a similar position with two positives.
That alone would suggest the highly transmittable nature of the new Omnicron variant, knowing the bubble environment in which travelling teams have remained.
The Heineken Champions Cup ties featuring Munster and the other European teams have been thrown into plan B mode, while the United Rugby Championship schedule has just become a very complicated puzzle, with four teams from South Africa.
The Irish U21 Women’s Hockey team had not yet travelled to South Africa before the news came through that the Junior World Cup had been postponed. Ireland’s place was as a result of Australia and New Zealand withdrawing for Covid reasons. The uncertainty of when the tournament will now be played is double for the Ireland team who may now find their replacement invitation reversed in the opposite direction.
The Ireland Women’s cricket team saw their World Cup qualification tournament in Zimbabwe cancelled and the focus switch to getting the team home. A flight to neighbouring Namibia was organised by the International Cricket council but the remaining legs of getting back to Ireland have yet to be determined with travel bans forcing a number of options to be considered.
As things stand at the moment it is the case that the team will need to isolate on their return.
The qualification has now been determined on world rankings and while the slim hope of a World cup has been ended, there was a gold lining with confirmation that Ireland would be included in the next round of the four-year cycle of the Women’s World Championship, playing structured matches against Australia, England, India, South Africa, New Zealand, Pakistan, West Indies, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
Further afield, the travel plans for European Football and Rugby, international Cricket, Golf and other events will now be on a knife-edge.
Europe will likely retain a Common travel area, as before, though with the UK now fully out of Europe, our separate common travel area with Britain and Northern Ireland may yet have repercussions on the other side, depending on any changes which the Westminster government might apply.
The European Cross Country Championships were postponed last year at the Sport Ireland Campus as a result of local restrictions in Ireland.
Planning for a full competition with all comers welcomed from across the continent has to continue on the basis of everything going ahead as planned but this promises to be a nervous week across all sporting bodies.
Sport for Business Perspective
We are back to a degree at the mercy of mitigation measures. That said, we are in a better position than in previous waves, with the vast majority of people vaccinated and a significant impact on the effect of the virus. The approach of different countries across Europe will have to be watched closely as it is almost certain to foreshadow what measures we may have to introduce ourselves.
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