The Sports Authority of India recently announced fresh Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) to deal with the significant rise observed in the coronavirus (COVID-19) cases, mostly owing to the newly identified Omicron variant. These measures will be strictly implemented across all National Centres of Excellence (NCOE) as well as the ongoing national coaching camps.
Upon arrival to the training centres, all athletes will have to undergo mandatory Rapid Antigen Test (RAT). If the test results negative, they will train and dine separately until the sixth day of joining. Moreover, a repeat examination of the RAT would take place on the fifth day and only the ones who get a positive result would undergo an RT-PCR test and will futher be treated in isolation, while all the other athletes testing negative would continue normal training as planned.
Proper isolation facilities are being earmarked for COVID positive or symptomatic athletes across the camps and the facilities would be sanitized twice a day. There will also be a micro bio-bubble, where the athletes will be divided into small groups for training and dining. The athletes will have also been strictly asked to avoid interacting with other groups.
There will also be random testing of athletes, coaches, support staff and non-residential staff in the NCOE, once every 15 days. It has also been recommended that athletes would be participating in only those competitions recommended by the respective National Sports Federations (NSFs) and the SAI HQ officials.
For invitational tournaments and non-Olympic qualifying events, recommendations would be made by the respective Regional Directors (RDs) of the NCOEs. It is also to be noted that guidelines from the respective state governments shall be superseding these guidelines in those particular states.
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