What are our Bundesliga players doing in times of Corona ?
While popular sports in Germany have come to a standstill, there are still opportunities for the professionals to compete and train.
But are the table tennis players of the second and third leagues really professionals, and what about the living conditions of the Bundesliga players of TTC 46 Weinheim in these Corona times?
In the meantime, only the first men’s and women’s Bundesliga continue to play, all other leagues have stopped playing for this year, and how the round will be continued in the new year is still to be decided
The matches could be played until the end of October, but for our foreign players it was always a shaky game even then.
Our two Belgians Lisa Lung and Margo Degraef were finally still able to enter the country after they had negative corona tests, the Belarusian Daria Trigolos did not receive a visa and was unfortunately left out.
Belgium is currently breathing a sigh of relief, the country has managed the corona turnaround. In October the infection numbers had exploded so much that Belgium was found in the top 3 of the countries in Europe most affected by the corona virus. More than 20,000 new infections were registered on some days during the last week of October, with only 11.5 million inhabitants.
The government pulled the emergency brake: after the catering trade, almost all stores except supermarkets had to close. Contacts were severely restricted, members of a household were allowed to meet only one person.
The strategy proved effective. The number of cases registered in the last few days was significantly lower: on average, 4,800 new infections were recorded every day throughout the country last week.
Lisa Lung lives in Tremelo, located between Brussels and Antwerp, and is going to school. She has completed a total of five corona tests, three of them for trips to the games in Germany. She still trains almost daily at the training center in Leuven, where Margo Degraef is still active, too.
Both feel 100% healthy despite the many risks in their environment.
Margo lives in Nijlen near Antwerp and is studying business administration. She too was able to enter Germany with negative tests
In Belarus (White Russia), corona infections are comparatively low, only about a quarter of those in Belgium with 9.5 million inhabitants. In contrast, the political situation is more explosive with the demonstrations against President Lukashenko.
Daria Trigolos lives and studies in the capital Minsk.
She feels good and takes care of herself by wearing masks on public transport and in stores and by disinfecting. She passed a corona test in March after she returned from a tournament in Oman and wanted to avoid quarantine. After that there was no reason for testing.
She can do her training as usual, usually twice a day at the national training center. Fortunately, the Ministry of Sports has not imposed any restrictions, only the health of the players must be strictly monitored.
Travelling within Belarus is possible, but due to Corona many train and air connections to foreign countries are suspended. And it is really difficult to get a visa. For Germany you would probably need a police permit in advance and then go into quarantine for a few days.
She hopes that Corona will soon be overcome and that league games and international tournaments will be possible again in 2021.
Our two German players, Luisa Säger and Jennie Wolf, naturally only have the known restrictions due to the pandemic. Luisa completes a dual training program at ABB, Jennie becomes an educator. There is of course no professional status to be spoken of.
The training possibilities are also limited accordingly, Jennie can only train once a week. Luisa is currently in an examination phase of her studies and still trains twice a week with Björn Baum and players from the third Bundesliga North, who have now moved to Heidelberg. Otherwise, she keeps fit at home with running and weight training.
They all hope to bring the season to a reasonable end, probably with a reduced round in which the other teams only play once each.
Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)
