It seems like an alternate reality, but Australia showed that sport is possible in full stadiums, with a hobby without mouthpieces and great athletes on the track.
This weekend a tennis exhibition tournament was played in Adelaide with over 4 thousand people in the stands, Thanks to strict measures by the Australian government, which have this city with a zero infection rate per covid-19.
figures com Novak Djokovic, Serena Williams and Rafael Nadal they didn’t give credit to what it meant to play again with full seats, something they’d been missing for a year.
“It was worth it because you guys made it special for us. We haven’t played in front of a crowd for 12 months and that’s very special, ”Nole said.
According to statements by the Australian Minister of Health, Greg HuntLast Friday, the country had not been infected in any of the states in the last 12 days.
He therefore congratulated the citizens for following the rules to reverse the number of infected, which reached its highest peak in August 2020.
“This is a testament to the work of our medical professionals, our public health teams, Of Australians everywhere for the way the distancing requirements have been met, the way they have protected each other, the way they say ‘I have come to test myself’, ”he said. dir Hunt.
‘A WIDER PERSPECTIVE IS NEEDED’
For the Adelaide tournament, the tennis players had to arrive a couple of weeks in advance to undergo a quarantine isolation, as this event will serve as a preamble at the Australian Open, which begins on Monday of that week.
During this lapse, players had set times to train individually to maintain social distancing. These measures were even more stringent because on January 16 it was reported that a plane carrying 47 tennis players had landed in Australia with people who tested positive..
But it has all been worth it to see a full stadium again, with fear-free fans because the minimum rate of contagion allows it. This is despite the fact that some tennis players complained about having to stay at the hotel all day, during their forties..
In this regard, Rafael Nadal told CNN that tennis players lacked a “broader perspective” to appreciate Australia’s measures.
AUSTRALIA, THE OPPOSITE END OF THE CRISIS
Until the night of January 31, Australia had recorded 909 deaths during the pandemic, In addition to the fact that throughout the country currently have only 59 active cases, and a cumulative of 28,818, representing just 0.1 percent of its population.
These figures represent the opposite end of the pandemic, which in the United States, the country hardest hit by the coronavirus, has accumulated more than 442,000 deaths and 26 million cases, The latter equivalent to 8 percent of its population.
In Mexico, Mazatlan has been the case of “success” to lead three games with fans since last semester, although with a capacity of half a stadium. The percentage of the population in our country that has suffered from covid-19 is 1.4 percent, although with a very different testing policy in the United States or Australia, with far fewer people subjected to them.
Stadiums with public have also been seen in Japan although in different circumstances, as last year they came to allow attendances of 80 percent, although like an experiment thinking about the Olympic Games and the forced fan to use mouthguards and not to shout, Very different from what happened to the enthusiastic fans in Adelaide.