Olympic-bound athletes get COVID vaccine jabs in Patiala, Bengaluru

Express News Service

CHENNAI: In a big relief for Olympic-bound athletes, the National Institute of Sports in Patiala and National Centre of Excellence in Bengaluru have started vaccinating those training at the respective facilities.

Most of them including ace javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra and senior men’s hockey players got their first jab on April 29 and 30. It is learnt that the athletes were administered Covishield. Only those, who had left or about to leave the centres, were not administered the first dose.

It is understood that athletes, who were in green zone, were vaccinated on April 29. That included 39 senior men’s hockey players and four support staff. Apart from them, eight from athletics (seven athletes and one support staff) and four from para-athletics were inoculated.

Notably, only those athletes, who have either qualified or can qualify for Olympics, are training at the SAI centres across the country. Meanwhile, athletes at NIS Patiala were vaccinated on April 30.

“Almost all of them got vaccinated. The remaining will be inoculated soon. A few weightlifters are the exception as one of them left for the USA for training while others have applied for visas,” said a highly placed source at the NIS Patiala.  Lifter Mirabai Chanu (49kg) along with her coach Vijay Sharma and assistant coach Sandeep Kumar left for the US on Saturday night.

The 26-year-old weightlifter from Manipur will train in St Louis and head directly to Tokyo in June. She is also expected to be joined by Dalabehera Jhilli (45kg), Jeremy Larinnunga (67kg) and Achinta Sheuli (73kg). The Indian Weightlifting Federation (IWLF) had also made it clear that Mirabai will be vaccinated in US before flying out for Tokyo.

Apart from these weightlifters, a few boxers who competed at Governor’s Cup in St Petersburg, Russia and are currently quarantining in Patiala have not been vaccinated. “They are serving a mandatory quarantine period as per the SAI’s standard operating procedures. As a precautionary measure, they will be vaccinated later this month,” added the source. 

Those who competed in Russia included Amit Panghal (52kg), Vinod Tanwar (49kg), Mohammed Hussamuddin (57kg), Varinder Singh (60kg), Manish Kaushik (63kg) and Ashish Kumar (75kg), Sumit Sangwan (81kg) and Naman Tanwar (91kg). 

Recently, the Indian Olympic Association in a circular suggested that athletes and support staff should get their vaccination on May 1. The IOA president Narinder Batra has also urged the national sports federations to send athletes abroad for training and competition after taking the first jab.