Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)
13 REASONS WHY
Irish boxing chief Dunne demands coronavirus tests for his full team following abandoned London event
BERNARD DUNNE has requested Covid-19 tests for the 13 Ireland’s boxers who were at the abandoned Olympic qualifiers in London.
The Turkish Boxing Federation claimed their head coach and two of their boxers were infected at the European qualifiers which began at on March 14.
The IOC’S Boxing Task Force called a halt after the third day of competition – just after Ireland
captain Brendan
Irvine secured his qualification for a second successive Games.
The BTF have refuted Turkey’s claim but Dunne, Irish Boxing’s High Performance Director, was clearly concerned that the qualifiers proceeded despite fears of the virus spreading.
“I’d like to test all my athletes, all my coaching team and all my support team,” Dunne said. “I’ve asked for it but none of our guys have any of the symptoms or don’t meet the criteria to be tested. Ideally we’d have them tested as soon as they came home.
“I asked for that. I was informed, ‘unfortunately we can’t do it’.”
Dunne told The Irish Times: “None of our guys would’ve fought any of the Turks.
“It has really evolved very, very quickly. When we went out there were very few cases in the UK. Again it grew exponentially and when it looked like there was any risk they made the decision to bring us home.
“We would, 100 percent, never put our athletes in any sort of danger whatsoever. We got very clear medical advice on it. We were happy with that.
“We were in constant contact with the chief medical officer back at home and we were questioning over there as to what was going on.
“We notified all of the athletes as soon as we found out. What we wanted to be is very open and honest with all of our athletes so they all knew.
“Nothing changes for us. We’re going into the ninth day now that we’re home. It’s self-quarantine, good hand hygiene and general common sense.
“If our guys show any symptoms they know they have to contact me and we’ll go through the medical process.”