The impact of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 and the worldwide reaction to it has claimed another two events around the world but there is at least better news for the friends and family of the Irish Women’s Cricket team and the Munster Rugby team who were caught up in travel bans from Zimbabwe and South Africa.
The cricketers were among those for whom the ICC and Cricket Ireland took responsibility for after the cancellation of their World Cup qualification tournament. They are pictured above on one leg of their journey from Harare to Windhoek, to Oman, to Qatar to home. They are expected to arrive in Dublin later today and go into isolation at home.
The majority of the Munster Rugby team have also been cleared to travel but overnight tests have returned more positive cases. See update news on this.
The largest movement of athletes in the coming weeks was to have been to the World University Winter Games in Switzerland but they have now been cancelled.
They were to have taken place from December 11 to 21 with hundreds of athletes taking part from more than 50 countries.
The games had been postponed from a year ago and a further postponement was declared to be ‘not an option’ by the Secretary-General of FISU Eric Saintrond.
Disappointing for our athletes who were due to compete, along with other Federations, but best wishes to the organising committee for all the work they did,’ added President of Student Sport Ireland Matt Dossett.
The World Team Squash Championships due to take place in Malaysia next month have also been cancelled, but nothing to do with the virus.
The Israeli team were refused Visa’s in a political row between them and the hosts and the World Squash Federation cancelled the whole event saying that “It is important to WSF that no nation who wishes to compete should miss out on the event.
Sport for Business Perspective
Great to get our teams back from the hot zone of the latest variant of Covid. It is inevitable that international competitions will be impacted by this latest wave but we can only hope that European based events including the Heineken Champions League, United Rugby Championship and European Cross Country Championships will be seen to be at the lower end of the risk scale.
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