NEW DELHI: Europe is currently experiencing a second wave of Covid-19 infections. And two Indian paddlers — G Sathiyan and Harmeet Desai — who are currently there have made alterations to their previous plans in order to keep themselves safe.
Both had signed contracts with various European leagues, Sathiyan representing Polish Superliga club Sokolow SA Jaroslaw while Harmeet went to Lyon in France to play for LNTT. However, both countries are in the midst of reporting record number of cases. Sathiyan had plans of training with the Polish national team after his stint in the league.
With the president of the country testing positive, Poland is currently in the red zone with numerous restrictions. Thankfully for the World No 32, his visa papers for his Japan league stint arrived right in the nick of time and he will now return to India this week. “It was getting scary here with talks of a lockdown intensifying. I plan to take a RT-PCR test and if the test result is negative, I will fly back as soon as possible. I can quarantine in Chennai before applying for the Japan visa from home,” he said from Poland. The 27-year-old has signed up to play in the Japanese TLeague for Okayama Rivets.
Harmeet managed to play a couple of matches before his third game got postponed after one of the players of the opposition team tested positive for coronavirus. Harmeet has now travelled to Germany to train there at his club TTF Ochsenhausen. “France is seeing record numbers. It is scary and even in the league, there have been instances of players testing positive. The place where I train in Germany is safer with few positive cases as it is located in a secluded area,” Harmeet said.