Bad Wi-Fi: The New Injury Card

“If we restart playing without fans but there’s contact on the pitch … maybe we can spread the virus between us,” Willian, who is currently in his native Brazil, told The Associated Press. “I play against someone and I get the virus, then I go home after the game to stay with my family and pass the virus to my wife or daughters. So we have to be careful about that.”

The Tour de France has been rescheduled to start on Aug. 29, two months late. But at least two teams have said they are not ready to commit without reservations.

“We would want to see proper mitigation techniques before the event,” Jonathan Vaughters, the manager of the Education First team, which includes several American riders, told The Guardian. “Maybe by July or August the virus has abated to the point that it’s not such a risk, but I can say that if there is a risk of a second wave that the Tour might be part of, then we would demand that there would be major mitigation before the event.”

“We would reserve the right to withdraw the team should we deem it necessary,” said Dave Brailsford of the Ineos team, which includes the defending champion, Egan Bernal. “Whilst the race is on, we will plan to participate, but equally we will monitor the evolving nature of how things play out.”

Yielding to the French Open

The trouble with rescheduling a major sporting event is that the new dates you pick probably already have other sports on the schedule.

When the French Open tennis tournament moved from its usual dates in late May and early June to two weeks beginning on Sept. 20, it did not go unnoticed that this would clash with the Laver Cup, an annual men’s team event pitting Europe against the rest of the world.

The conflict led to concern that Roger Federer, a co-creator of the Laver Cup and no lover of clay-court events, would skip the French this year.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/17/sports/sports-schedules.html