CHENNAI: The Sports Authority of India (SAI) has decided to step in to cover the expenses of Ajay Jayaram and Subhankar Dey during their forced quarantine in Germany.
"The SAI will pay for the expenses that are going to be incurred by two badminton players, Ajay Jayaram and Subhankar Dey, for the length of their quarantine in Germany from October 30 to November 10, on humanitarian grounds," a SAI release said. "SAI will be paying a total of Rs 1.46 lakh for their hotel stay and food expenses and will release 90 per cent of the amount immediately."
They were forced to pull out of the SaarlorLux Open, a World Tour Super 100 meet, in Saarbrucken, roughly 185 kms from Frankfurt, on Wednesday. They had come in contact 'with a member of their team entourage who tested positive for Covid-19', according to a BWF press release.
The member in question was DK Sen, Lakshya's father. The former junior World No 1 had already been scratched from the event.
As a consequence, both Jayaram and Dey will be in quarantine till November 10. "(...) for coach Sen quarantine is in force until 6.11. He will be released from quarantine if there are no symptoms in the last 48 hours before the end of quarantine. All other contact persons have quarantine until 10.11," the tournament organisers said in a release.
It's likely that Jayaram and Dey were asked to quarantine because they had taken part in a training session where Sen was present before his Covid-19 test result was out.
Why does that matter? Dey and Jayaram claim that the organisers had allowed Sen's entourage to be inside the premises without asking for their Covid-19 negative certificates.
"We are on our own and have spent so much to come all the way here. Moreover, if the organisers had followed the process of checking, this could have been avoided. Lakshya and Co came (to Saarbrucken) and then went back for testing (to Frankfurt). We could have kept distance had the process of checking on arrival been implemented," Dey told this daily.
"Unlike Denmark Open, there was nobody from the organising committee asking for reports. We didn't know they hadn't undergone tests. Together we went for practice once (before Lakshya's father tested positive)," Dey added.
Both Dey and Jayaram want to get back to India as Germany is going into a lockdown from November 1.
" We would like to know if it is possible for us to get tested here again and come back to India. We have tried contacting the organisers regarding this but haven't received any response," Jayaram posted on Twitter.
But it looks like they will be in Saarbrucken till November 10 at least. The lockdown in Germany is only going to be partial. The borders will be open.