"Across a season of fine margins, sitting out one of the four Grand Slams, a Grand Prix or two WSL legs is unthinkable. Or is it?"
One week ago, it was revealed here that the World Surf League had sent out letters to athletes ahead of the 2022 Championship Tour that must be vaccinated in order to compete on the entire tour. Per BeachGrit‘s source, “It sort of mirrors the U.S. government policy and Australian policy and the Australians are very tight on this. No pokey, no surfy.”
Now, Australian broadsheet The Guardian has confirmed that the country’s ultra-strict vaccination requirements will not be loosened even for superstar tennis players like Novak Djokovic. Even even for the world’s greatest surfer Kelly Slater.
Slater’s predicament underscores a looming dilemma for international sporting competitions. While Australia’s long-closed borders are now slowly reopening, the blanket ban on foreign arrivals is being replaced by vaccination requirements that are stringent by international standards. In sports notable for their globe-trotting – including tennis, golf, road cycling, Formula One, surfing and cricket – Australia’s entry requirements make being unvaccinated a significant competitive liability. Across a season of fine margins, sitting out one of the four Grand Slams, a Grand Prix or two WSL legs is unthinkable. Or is it?
“I don’t think an unvaccinated tennis player is going to get a visa to come into this country,” Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews insisted recently, amid defending Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic’s ongoing disinclination to disclose whether or not he has been vaccinated. “And if they did get a visa, they’d probably have to quarantine for a couple of weeks. But let’s not personalise it. I don’t think any other [unvaccinated] tennis player or golfer or Formula One driver will even get a visa to get here.” Djokovic has told the New York Times that he is not against vaccines generally, but does not agree with mandates – especially for the Covid-19 vaccine.
The paper detailed Slater’s, and other high profile athletes’, fight against mandates and how leagues around the world are making exceptions to accommodate but that state premiers, in Australia, will not buckle to the star power, the unique charms of Kelly Slater and keep him locked out of their Lucky Country.
The piece was ended thusly, “Slater’s rivals on the WSL will breathe easy knowing they have one less foe in the water at Bells Beach next Easter.”
Breathe easy.
Get it?
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I didn’t say intelligent, maybe crafty is more apt.
Jeeze that picture of him just drips gay head jobs.
If he was the go to Australian photographer in the 80’s and 90’s I’m sure he’d have pros shooting him….right in the face!
The weirdest fucking disconnect is the fact that the vaccines have very little affect on transmission. You can get it and pass it on easily as a vaccinated person or an unvaccinated person. This wasn’t the case to begin with but the mutations have changed this. I’m double jabbed and about to get the booster but just cannot understand the cognitive dissonance going on here. Sure, they are shown to protect the vaccinated from severe illness and thus helping hospitals from being overrun, but only allowing double jabbed people to travel will have negligible affects on transmission of Covid. Let people decide what goes in their bodies! If they want to risk serious illness then it’s up to them.
Maybe mandate thorough testing and compulsory health insurance for unvaccinated visitors…?
I’m with Smelly on this one. The govt has no constitutional right to make us take any sort of medicine, whether its’ ‘for our own good’ or not. Where there’s risk, there has to be choice. Resist health fascism at all costs.
Yes, no.
A contender????!!!! Again this???!!!
Still insisting on this bullshit???!!!!
I’m not on the CT but I’ll still “breathe eas[ier]” knowing his selfish ass is not around to breathe dirty, unvaccinated air into mine.
But – Kelly Slater knows more about staying healthy than 99% of all medical doctors!
Welcome to Victoria. You won’t even be able to walk into Kmart in 2 weeks if you aren’t double vaxxed.
Dan also can’t walk around anywhere now and not have fukwit yelled at him
The bottom half of the CT and top half of the QS should pay KS to retire , because if he doesn’t half those dudes would be out of a job.
Because a majority of people believe in sky gods and the power of the anecdote as related by Otto’s off-shift nurse mother you may be selected by your own arrogant ignorance to die with or without a tube in your lung because vaccines are death serums that Tex Vagina swears Kelly and Djokovic will never inject into their pure blood.
Or something like that? It’s mutable.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahajahahahahahahahah
Yikes. No thanks.
I’m not sure how to receive this.
No problem. Slater just needs to win Pipe, G Land and Chopes. That guarantees a top 5 spot going into the final day held at 10′ Cloudbreak
Give kelly an excuse other than the ankle as to why he didn’t win the world title
Yes… Kelly, Trump supporters or any person who remains unvaccinated will be forbidden entry to the Republic of Western Australia. Make no mistake, If you attempt entry we will promptly catch you and feed you to our sharks (if the hordes of dont burn you at the stake first).
You have been warned.
You do you
Don’t rely on me
You’d reckon a “surf journalist” would know what a broadsheet is.
It’s a paper size.
Guardian ain’t broadsheet.
BUT IT’S ON TELEGRAM!