“The precautionary principle is what must take precedence. It’s still amateur sport and the most important thing is that the kids have fun on the meadow ”. Fun, Olivier Loutrat, the co-president of the Ussel rugby club did not take much during the week of hell that shook his club. The day after a trip, we alerted that a player from his team who plays in Federal 3 is positive for Covid-19. In his mind, everything connects very quickly. This player rubbed shoulders with the players, the staff but also the managers in the bus during the trip. In all, nearly sixty people. After consultation with the Regional Health Agency, they are all case-contact. Fighting commotion. The workforce is placed in isolation.
In front of the clubhouse, it is not a refreshment bar that throne that day but a laboratory drive where a nurse is methodically working to carry out the nasopharyngeal samples. The results fall a few hours later: all negative.
Without health consequences, for the club, the experience was trying. “From a sporting point of view, there is no fairness this season. Between those who will play with a lot of postponed matches, those who will not train for the week, etc… Professionally, I also have some feedback from players who tell me that it will be difficult to compose like this all year round… “While the regulations stipulate that three positive cases must be proven in the team in order not to play the following weekend and postpone the match, Saint-Cernin, the club against which Ussel was to play, accepted without any problem to postpone the match of Sunday. For its part, the Federation has not made history either.
“Frankly, I don’t see what we could have done otherwise. Safety comes first, ”concludes Olivier Loutrat. A week later, his club finally played against Saint-Cernin …
The virus in the room
“At school, since the start of the school year, it takes three cases in a class to close it. It’s the same with basketball, ”slips philosopher Benoît Tixier, coach in Ufolep in the Mozac Volvic Basket club. If his club has not been impacted by Covid-19, he expects to be faced with the disease “without psychosis or fear”. Basketball is an indoor club where contacts are permanent. Breathing and sweating in a confined space means that the practice can promote the circulation of the virus. In fact, the French Handball Federation, a gymnasium sport with frequent contacts, quite similar to basketball, has not decided to apply the same rules …
“In hand, a single case is enough to stop everything. “
Cyril Faucher, President of HBC Cournon d’Auvergne (empty)
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Cyril Faucher has experienced it. His club, HBC Cournon d’Auvergne has had a case. Immediately and following the protocol decreed by the federation, the club went on stand-bye for a week. The president congratulated himself: “The federation has planned things well. We have a championship formula this season with a first phase of ten games. It was decided that if the championship could not go to an end, it is the classification of this first phase which would determine the positions. This allows everyone to be able to postpone matches without fear… ”.
“They didn’t want to go”
Fear, to listen to Didier Chastang, everyone has been seized within his football club Chamalières. “The players didn’t want to go. The staff didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to go ”. And they went there. Back on a textbook case as there could be hundreds this season in all sports, and at all levels.
Didier Chastang, the president of the Chamalières football club.
The president of FC Chamalières learns on a Tuesday evening that one of the players of his National 2 team has contracted Covid-19. Panic on board. The regulations state that a club must play as long as four cases of Covid have not been proven in a team at the same time. However, the club in question no longer really has a head for football.
“The guys were wondering if they caught it. Most feared they would be infected. No one really wanted to go play in Angoulême on Friday … “
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The president therefore promises his players to get information and do everything possible to postpone the meeting. He contacted the FFF: “They explained to me that we could not go but hey, there was a regulation. I thought maybe the ARS could do something. The president then communicates by email with the ARS. He explains his situation: a case arose in his club and four people were put in solitary confinement. He insists on his will not to spread the virus. The response of the ARS explains that it is not its responsibility to record postponements of meetings but that of the federation. If some players no longer go to work at the request of their hierarchy alerted to the situation during this particular week, it will be a question of continuing to play football.
How the Covid-19 epidemic has progressed since the start of the school year in Auvergne and Limousin
Staff, players and managers therefore make the decision to go play. The 8-hour round trip is done in minibuses without the possibility of physical distancing but with masks. After a week of hesitation, apprehension and uncertainty, the Chamalières club learned with relief that the rest of the workforce had finally not been infected with the virus. Not all were so lucky.
When the virus scores points
It starts like the cases mentioned above. Clermont Métropole ice rink, part of the HCCA hockey team. A player alerts his leaders. Since the same morning, he has no taste or smell. Tested, he is declared positive for Covid-19. At the same time, three coaches from several different sections are heading to a meeting in Lyon. The three men are unfortunately infected. Four elements declared positive in several sections, that is starting to do a lot.
The leaders of the club take the decision to stop all training and after consultation with the ARS, to test all club members. Of the 70 people tested, 15 are positive. Only five had symptoms. The club is placed in quarantine at the beginning of September, it is still the rule of 14 days of isolation that applies. Since then, we have taken over the crosses in Clermont. As long as the virus does not score any more points …
The rule and its spirit
Some committees have chosen to reverse the location of the matches scheduled for last weekend from the Clermont-Ferrand metropolitan area to gymnasiums outside Clermont. This was the choice for example of the Puy-de-Dôme basketball committee.
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Grégory Gomez
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