Controversy surrounding the upcoming Australian Open continues to grow, as Australian Tennis CEO Craig Tiley denied that any player in the tournament tested positive for Covid-19, hours after the Victorian government said two players had confirmed cases earlier in the day.
Tiley told reporters at a news conference on Tuesday that of seven confirmed cases of three charter flights to Melbourne, one was a flight attendant and the rest were part of player fans. Tiley said she could not comment on the government statement and acknowledged that several players had shown viral spills suggesting they had been previously infected.
Players arriving in the Australian state of Victoria have been placed in quarantine for 14 days before their grand slam matches. Most have been assigned five hours each day to go out to train in strict biosecure bubbles, but 72 players have been unable to leave hotel rooms and cannot practice, according to strict quarantine rules after their passengers you want to give positive to Covid-19. .
As a result, some athletes have expressed frustration with the situation they have found themselves in and have expressed concern that those who are allowed to leave may have an unfair advantage.
Tiley also addressed the allegations of some players who said the risk of a strict quarantine was not properly communicated before leaving for Australia. He said event organizers were in contact with groups of players frequently and that the idea they didn’t know about quarantine policies “just isn’t true.”
The tournament director believes some players may have had different experiences in the pandemic and had erased the reality of what the quarantine would be like, as they had not experienced any.
When asked about the accommodations being held for the 72 hard-closing players, Tiley said Tennis Australia has “a great deal of empathy in supporting them”.
“I still don’t know exactly what that means, but we will definitely look at the schedule, the practice fields, the practice schedules, the fields where they practice, the availability of time, and they will have priority.”
Australia has allowed 1,270 foreigners to enter the country to take part in the event amid some of the world’s strictest arrival policies. Last year, the state capital of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia’s second most populous city, was mired in a brutal closure for 111 days.
Aware that many expect the Australian Open as a preview of possible logistical challenges to organizing large-scale international sporting events in the midst of a pandemic, Tiley said: “I don’t think any of us understand the difficulty of managing this type. of problems. a huge task in delivering it “.
“I think we will provide a lot of intelligence for the Olympics,” he said about the logistics for the athletes.
“If we get it, I’m much more confident that the Olympics can happen too.”
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