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‘Stupid decision by BWF to hold All England Championships amid coronavirus outbreak’ - Chirag Shetty

Hindustan Times | ByKaran Prashant Saxena
Mar 24, 2020 11:40 AM IST

The 22-year-old further cited a report that stated that an athlete from Taiwan, who was present at All England premises, has tested positive for coronavirus.

On March 6th, India’s rising men’s doubles team comprising of Chirag Shetty and Satwiksairaj Rankireddy announced the decision to pull out from All England Championships due to the outbreak of coronavirus pandemic in United Kingdom. Several tournaments across the world including ISSF World Cup in New Delhi, Asian Wrestling Olympic qualifiers in Kazakhstan, and Serie A La Liga, and Premier League football matches were getting suspended, at the time. But despite the threat, BWF announced that they will be continuing with the tournament.

Now, a week after the culmination of the tournament, Chirag calls the decision from the world badminton as “stupid” and said that BWF put players at risk.

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“Because of the situation was changing everyday, BWF should not have continued with All England Championships. They took a decision on Friday before the tournament to continue it. At that time, there were 15-20 cases in England. By the time the tournament started next week on Wednesday, it had gone up to 300 cases. By the time it ended on Sunday, it was a state of lockdown in the UK with almost a 1000 cases,” the Indian shuttler said.

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The 22-year-old further cited a report that stated that an athlete from Taiwan, who was present at All England premises, has tested positive for coronavirus. “There was a compulsory quarantine for all people coming from Europe. BWF could have avoided the thing. Recently, one Taiwanese athletes at All England also tested positive. It was very risky.”

Chirag believes that BWF was losing out on money with the cancellation of tournaments, and hence decided to continue with All England. “Nothing went wrong with BWF planning. The more tournaments were getting cancelled, the Olympic qualification period was getting smaller and smaller. Also, BWF was losing out on a lot of money, I think. All England is a prestigious tournament, which gets a lot of traction. So they went on with it,” he said.

The 22-year-old further slammed the body for not even holding the matches behind closed doors. “With the whole world going down into lockdown, and you are continuing with the one of the biggest badminton tournaments. It was not even held behind closed doors. The stadiums was completely packed. When you are holding a tournament like that, it’s a very stupid decision to make. It could have been avoided, surely,” he said.

Chirag and Satwik were not the only ones to back out from the tournament. HS Prannoy, HS Prannoy, Manu Attri, Sameer Verma, Saurabh Verma and B Sumeeth Reddy also decided to back out due to coronavirus outbreak. But India star shuttlers PV Sindhu, Saina Nehwal and Kidambi Srikanth were among the contingent that decided to travel to England for the contest.

“It was very risky for Indian shuttlers over there. The ones who were trying for Olympic qualification decided to go there. But some people may be could have avoided, because the situation was not the best. I feel I took the right decision to not go,” he said.

He further recalled how Satwik was the one who convinced him to pull out from the tournament. “Satwik was hesitant to go. I think he was a bit stretched. I was not scared, I would have gone. After a day, we sat down with coach Flandy Limpele, and he advised us that if we can avoid it, then we should. So I agreed to drop it, and I think I am glad I did so,” he said.

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