All Asian Leg Participants Test Negative Wednesday, January 6, 2021 https://bwfworldtour.bwfbadminton.c.../06/all-asian-leg-participants-test-negative/ The Asian Leg in Bangkok, due to start next week with the YONEX Thailand Open, received a boost with all 824 participants in the Green Zone quarantine bubble testing negative for COVID-19. The Green Zone consists of players and their entourage and all stakeholders who come into direct contact with them, such as umpires, line judges, personnel from BWF, Badminton Association of Thailand, medical staff, and TV production crew. All international Green Zone participants were required to submit a negative in their own country before departure to Bangkok and were then tested again in Bangkok upon entry into hotel quarantine. Local players, staff and personnel based in Thailand were also tested and quarantined as part of the Green Zone bubble. Players are now cleared for training under strict safety protocols. The quarantine measures will be in place throughout the mandatory 14-day observation period including during the staging of the YONEX Thailand Open. More routine COVID-19 tests will follow with strict safety protocols to remain in place until the end of the Asian Leg, which concludes with the completion of the HSBC BWF World Tour Finals on 31 January 2021. _____ A sigh of relief for both BAT & BWF at the moment...
SGP Open is scheduled on April 2021. CHN players pull out because can't obtain clearance by their government to go abroad.
can someone explain the math to me? players started arriving yesterday, tourney starts on the 12th. that's 8 days. what are the dates of 'the mandatory 14-day observation period'? even though everyone may be 'negative' today what about potential asymptomatic people? did they mandate consistent multiple negative test results starting from 12/21/2019; the 14 days prior to arrival in bangkok? is bat/bwf trying to sell us on 'smooth sailing' from here on out? hope not. my gut says it won't be.
I think perhaps staying negative for 14 days since the first of many serial tests starting from their home country or airport. Sent from my SM-G988W using Tapatalk
that adds an up to 72 hour danger window for contraction. it's nice to see bwf trying, but they're leaving too much room for error. you can point to -learn from- the one sport that did it correctly because of one major requirement: one location with one quarantine start date for all participants & personnel. in other words everybody arrives to tournament bubble location with a negative test by day 1, then the 14 day quarantine starts with testing for the duration, then the tournament starts on day 15. violators of bubble borders & isolation regulations were purged immediately. when done correctly bwf's excuse of having multiple countries involved is not valid.
"Saina Nehwal lashes out at BWF over rules and regulations in Thailand" https://360badminton.com/news/saina-nehwal-lashes-out-at-bwf-over-rules-and-regulations-in-thailand/ practice issues & physio issues raised by saina. re. physio issues: vittinghus mentioned on his podcast he had access to his physio. so something is getting lost in translation. every member association & bwf should be used to dealing w/ clear translation of procedures in all languages. *smh*
Trying to answer your questions... 1) Day-0 : 4th January 2021 02) Unexplained yet 03) Nope. 04) BWF and host organizer intend to convince these designated cluster tournament format is safe with bubble environment, so many pix and updates through social media platform that guiding opinion about the "safe" condition. We'll wait how it proceeds in coming weeks...
so by "14 days" they mean the first 7 days is arrival through the start of practice, and the second 7 days is the actual tournament. i like how bat/bwf is redefining the 'q' word. i'd love to be able to play in a tournament consisting of 824 player/personnel whenever i'm q'tining. the 'athletes and entourage must stay in their room...' is a bit vague. does this mean it's 1 person per room? or are you allowed to go to a team members/entourages room? from hk vittinghus's @AYearOnTour podcast it sounds like you are not allowed. he mentioned having to talk through a teammates room door, and he is alone in his instagram videos. these are quite different safety measures from the denmark open where some athletes were sharing rooms. regarding saina nehwal's practice and physio issues it sounds like they have to utilize their 1 hour practice time for practice & physio needs, which is ridiculous. if sharing practice time with your 'group' is deemed safe shouldn't you be able to move freely within your groups hotel/physio rooms? one last ?'n that possibly only i'm thinking about... is bat or bwf paying for the 824 hotel rooms for 3 weeks + 210 rooms for wt finals week?
- One room for one player except the officials (2 person per room). - *Taken from PBSI twitter account* Looking at the above tournament time-table, both Toyota THA Open & World Tour Finals will allow spectators.
They changed the plan a few days ago. None of the tournaments will allow spectators. Local ticket vendors have been refunding purchases.
Thomas Lund: ‘Happy to See Positive Sentiment’ Friday, January 8, 2021 TEXT BY DIANNE PIERRE | BADMINTONPHOTO https://bwfworldtour.bwfbadminton.c.../thomas-lund-happy-to-see-positive-sentiment/ Excerpts from BWF Secretary General Thomas Lund Q & A ============================================================= What happens if a player is found to be positive for COVID-19 during the Asian Leg? TL: If a positive case is found, the player will be isolated and contract tracing will take place. Any player who has been in contact will also need to isolate. As in other sports, this is something we are all getting used to. We are confident we will be able to take care of the player and keep the rest of the players safe during these special times. China and Japan withdrew from the Asian Leg; what’s your expectation for the level of competition we will see throughout the month? TL: We will have a great tournament though it was unfortunate that China and Japan had to withdraw, as well as the world’s top men’s doubles pair from Indonesia. We would love to have all the players; we will miss those who withdrew. But we have a great and immensely high level of players in Bangkok. Do you see the Asian Leg setting the standard or being a blueprint for other tournament hosts to follow throughout the year? TL: There are a lot of learnings we can use from these tournaments. Each country, however, is different. There will be different minimum standards and different health authorities that will have different requirements to follow. We will take away from this all the possible learnings for our next tournament cluster so the set-up can cope with the impact of COVID-19. The completion of the HSBC BWF World Tour Finals brings the 2020 season to a close, what can badminton fans expect in 2021? TL: We recently released a tournament calendar for the first half of 2021. We are planning to keep tournaments together in a different way. There are clusters planned in Indonesia and we hope to make it more accessible for players to be able to travel more easily to such tournaments. We have learnt a lot in the last six months on staging competitions. We hope to see COVID-19 disappear as vaccines come in. ______ - We might see another clusters in South East Asia region if this January tours succeeded but looks like there'll be stand alone tournament in Europe tour (March) : SUI Open, GER Open, All England. - THA "bubble tournament" isn't blueprint for other hosts as condition of every country has different way how to tackle COVID-19. - Talking about vaccines, Indonesia needs 15 months (April 2022) to inoculate 180 million people which means it still sends worrying signal if INA clusters would be held on June.
it seems this would eliminate their entire team because they're all practicing in close proximity to each other and very near each other when they go to/from their rooms. a different way? how? i don't see it... the march tournaments -sui/ger/all england- appear to be no different than previous years. it's not a bubble. travel between each is still nec'y, which makes it high risk based on current public health stats. how can anyone play in both sui & ger when there's no time to quarantine in between? will top ranked all england athletes bother to play the sui 300 & ger 300? i doubt it. what's different here, mr. lund? in april there is the mas masters 500 followed by the sgp open 500. again, not a bubble with insufficient time to q'tine in between. again, what's different here? oh, i see... june has a mini bubble with the ina masters 500 & ina open 1000 in the same venue. this seems like the only 'different' and 'safe' play.
We just need 1000 dose of vaccines for players, coaches, umpires,... Then, the problem solved 17+ millions doses was injected
- Both SUI & GER Open 2021 are calculated into Race of Tokyo point while All England 2021 edition is excluded. - Impossible to implement quarantine with so close timeline between MAS cluster and SGP Open so do Europe tours. - June schedule will depending on how INA could curb this pandemic which is worse at current state.
the points up for grabs only really affect the players trying to make it to #16th place for singles & #8th place for doubles. aren't all the realistic medal contenders comfortably in already? my main point is as much as bwf/thomas lund wants us to believe tournament scheduling is different this year, it's really not. other than the current bangkok bubble and potential indonesian bubble nothing has changed. the top tier tournaments were always geographically clustered.
viktor axelsen gets censored by bwf: https://360badminton.com/news/bwf-deletes-facebook-comment-from-viktor-axelsen/ this action taken by bwf does not surprise me. censoring one of your stakeholders is a sign of immaturity, insecurity and unprofessionalism. what are they trying to hide? transparency is of utmost importance, especially if you're doing things wrong, especially if your stakeholders are unhappy. this is why bwf will always be bwf and not a respected governing sports federation. yes, give bwf credit for trying to maintain our sport. but, if you're going to do it at least do it in a logical and professional manner. the food issue is something i'd expect from a mom-n-pop food stall trying to survive. not an int'l sport's governing body. you cannot shift the blame completely to badminton thailand because bwf sticks their nose into everything a tournament host does. this i know from experience. if it's a money issue for badminton thailand bwf should let them save money in other areas of less importance. as far as not letting athletes spend time outside while masked and safely distanced from others is beyond comprehensible. smokers can smoke outside, but, athletes are not afforded some fresh air? what's next bwf? hire people with common sense. is that too much to ask? oh wait... nevermind.
I think the elite players would pay attention for those back to back S300 tournaments since Tokyo OG will implement Race of Tokyo Ranking instead of BWF World Ranking. Yup, we'll wait and see how this Asian Leg running in coming weeks.
