Thursday, September 30, 2021
Beijing has announced that athletes at the 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics who are not fully vaccinated against coronavirus will have to serve 21-day quarantine upon arrival in the city. Participants at the games who are fully vaccinated will enter a “closed-loop management system” when they arrive.
Athletes who have a justified medical exemption for the vaccine will have their cases considered. The Winter Olympics is set to begin next February, followed by the Paralympics in March. Games organisers said that tickets will be sold “exclusively to spectators residing in China’s mainland” who meet the coronavirus countermeasures.
Vaccinated athletes will be allowed to move only between Games-related venues for training, competitions and work. All those involved in the games within the closed-loop system will be tested on a daily basis. Competitors at the summer Games in Tokyo this year were given daily tests and served three-day quarantine on their arrival.
Those games were largely held behind closed doors, with up to 10,000 Japanese fans permitted at venues. The International Olympic Committee and International Paralympic Committee said it welcomed the decision to sell tickets to those in China’s mainland.
According to an official statement from authorities in Beijing the event will facilitate the growth of winter sports in China by giving those spectators a first-hand Olympic and Paralympic experience of elite winter sports. However, it was also mentioned that all parties feel for the athletes and the spectators from around the world, knowing that the restriction on spectators had to be put in place to ensure the safe holding of the games this winter.
Friday, April 19, 2024
