Saarbrucken (Germany): Indian shuttlers Ajay Jayaram and Shubhankar Dey were Thursday forced out of the SaarLorLux Open. The Indian shuttlers were put in isolation as they had come into contact with COVID-19 positive father-cum-coach of defending champion Lakshya Sen. It should be stated here that Lakshya has already withdrawn from the event. The 19-year-old Lakshya withdrew Wednesday after his father DK Sen returned a positive test for the dreaded virus.
“BWF can confirm three players have been withdrawn from the SaarLorLux Open 2020. It is a precautionary measure for all participants after they were in contact with a member of their team entourage. The person has tested positive for COVID-19,” the Badminton World Federation said in a statement. “The three players: Lakshya Sen, Ajay Jayaram and Subhankar Dey will not compete further in the tournament,” it added.
Later, Jayaram, in a Twitter post tagged sports minister Kiren Rijiju, the national badminton federation and BWF. He said that he and Dey would like to return to India soon. The organisers have not given them any information or assistance apart from asking them to isolate.
“Owing to one of the players failing to follow the COVID-19 protocol and the organisers failing to enforce the protocols set in place, I and Shubhankar have found ourselves in an unfortunate situation…,”wrote Jayaram.
“We have our COVID-19 negative certificates, and have NO symptoms. We are unable to contact the German local authorities. We would like to know if it is possible for us to get tested here again and come back to India. We have currently been asked to isolate with absolutely no other information from the organisers including our meals,” Jayaram added.
Dey also demanded compensation for the ordeal. “Requesting authorities to compensate us while also allowing us to return to India,” he tweeted.
Jayaram said repeated attempts to get a word from the organisers have proved futile so far. Lakshya, Jayaram and Dey had tested negative ahead of the tournament. Jayaram had won his opening-round clash on Monday.