England soccer championship matches postponed, numbers in the NBA decimated, preparation for the Australian Open disrupted, return of the gauges in France … Sport is not spared by the surge of cases of COVID-19 linked to the Omicron variant and fears reliving a return to total closed doors, or even a cessation of competitions.
It is the return of the restrictions in French sports arenas whose attendance will be limited, from next Monday and for three weeks, to 2,000 people indoors and 5,000 people outdoors.
These announcements by Prime Minister Jean Castex follow a series of postponements of matches in the French Rugby and Basketball Championship. The French men’s handball team, which is preparing for Euro 2022, is also disturbed by several cases of COVID-19 within it.
For the English soccer championship, his sacrosanct “Boxing Day” (Boxing Day) did not have its usual festive aspect with three matches postponed, including Liverpool-Leeds. Two matches of the 20e day, scheduled from Tuesday to Thursday, have already been adjourned.
In total, the Premier League has been forced to postpone around fifteen games over the last three days, as Britain faces a record number of COVID-19 cases caused by the Omicron variant.
On Monday, the English championship also revealed that between December 20 and 26, 103 positive cases for COVID-19 had been revealed, out of “15,186 tests administered to players and club staff”, a record since the start tests in 2020.
Wales have decided that all sporting events will now take place behind closed doors. In Scotland, the three-week winter break was brought forward: it started on Monday instead of January 3.
The other European championships are due to resume by the end of the first week of January and could also find themselves upset by the spread of the Omicron variant.
In Germany, where the Bundesliga is due to resume on January 7, all sports competitions, including football matches, will now take place behind closed doors.
While waiting for Djokovic
Another potential victim is tennis. The tennis internationals are set to start on January 17 and three top players – Rafael Nadal, Andrey Rublev and Denis Shapovalov – have announced that they are positive for COVID-10 and that their participations could be called into question.
“I now need to recover and I will only go to Melbourne when it is safe for everyone,” Rublev said on Twitter on Monday.
World number 1 Serbian Novak Djokovic, who refuses to say whether or not he is vaccinated against COVID, must announce by the end of the year whether he will participate in the first Grand Slam tournament of the year . His entourage has already affirmed that he will not participate in the ATP Cup (from 1er to January 9) in Sydney, the first meeting of the season.
To be allowed to return to Australia and participate in the tournament, players, their entourage and members of their management must be vaccinated.
Alpine skiing is not spared either: American Mikaela Shiffrin, leading the Women’s World Cup, announced on Monday that she had tested positive for COVID-19, and that she would therefore miss Tuesday and Wednesday the races in Lienz (Austria), which will be held behind closed doors.
NBA and NHL in turmoil
The cases of COVID-19 have been increasing in recent weeks on the women’s ski circuit, after in particular the Swiss Lara Gut-Behrami, the New Zealander Alice Robinson and the Austrian Katharina Liensberger.
In the United States and Canada, the NBA basketball championship continues year after year, but teams are decimated by COVID cases, with 27 of 30 franchises facing the epidemic, according to figures released by the North League -american Sunday.
The Atlanta Hawks are deprived of eleven players, the Boston Celtics of nine. The only consolation: the NBA allows teams to recruit players for short-term contracts who move into the reserve championship to replace those absent.
Also on the American continent, the major ice hockey championship is not spared. The resumption after the Christmas break scheduled for Monday has been postponed until Tuesday so that the National Hockey League can analyze the results of COVID-19 tests and assess the readiness of the teams.
The 14 games scheduled for Monday night have thus been postponed, bringing the total of games rescheduled in the NHL this season to 67 due to COVID-19.