US to exempt foreign athletes from virus-related entry bans

WASHINGTON: The US will exempt some of the foreign athletes who compete in the professional sporting events in the US from entry bans imposed because of the novel coronavirus epidemic, acting Secretary of Homeland Security Chad Wolf said.

“In today’s environment, Americans need their sports. It’s time to reopen the economy and it’s time we get our professional athletes back to work,” Wolf said in a statement issued by the department announcing he had signed an order for the exemption.

President Donald Trump’s administration is pushing to reopen the US economy after drastic measures to combat the pandemic this year put tens of millions of people out of work.

Major US professional sports were shut down as part of the effort to tackle COVID-19, the respiratory disease cause by the coronavirus which has killed more than 94,000 people and infected 1.57 million in the United States.

In its response to the epidemic, the Trump administration has also imposed bans on entry of travelers from China, where the epidemic started, as well as Iran and much of Europe. Besides the athletes, the exemption applies to the sporting leagues’ essential staff, spouses and dependents, the statement said. The sports covered by the exemption include Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association, the Women’s National Basketball Association, the Professional Golfers’ Association Tour, the Ladies Professional Golf Association Tour, the National Hockey League, the Association of Tennis Professionals, and the Women’s Tennis Association.

Meanwhile, with traditional competition shut down by the coronavirus pandemic, Athletics has begun experimenting with imaginative and unusual ways to ensure that, somehow, the show goes on.

The olympics and european championships have been postponed and there no traditional meetings are scheduled until the Diamond League in Monaco on August 14, yet there has been a steady stream of creative initiatives to allow competition. There have been long-distance pole-vault showdowns and solo races against the clock.

Micro meetings are planned and, in a sport built on direct competition, promoters of traditional meetings are looking at ways to stage meaningful one-runner races in arenas where no hands are clapping.

“In this period when nothing is happening, there is no bad idea, apart from taking health risks,” Remy Charpentier, the organiser of the Monaco meeting, told AFP.