SA sports bodies have to get creative

Sport, like so many other aspects of life, will never be the same again. Since the outbreak of Covid-19, various sporting codes and their organisations have been wracking their brains to come up with new ideas of how to continue plying their trade under new conditions.

From playing behind closed doors to reinventing their sports and, more importantly, limiting contact as much as possible, sporting bodies have had to think outside of the box. Cricket banned using saliva to shine the ball, baseball prohibited players from spitting and showering at venues, while rugby suggested changing rules for rucks and mauls to limit contact areas.

The Bundesliga resumed last weekend in empty stadiums, while other sports are also slowly moving closer to restarting. On Wednesday, English Premier League clubs will vote on a return to contact training in the hope they will resume competition next month.

Sports fans have been deprived for months now, so any sport with big names gets them excited. None more so than the Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson showdown with NFL legends Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, which raised $20 million (R347.9 million) for US coronavirus relief on Sunday.

More of this creativity is needed as local sporting bodies figure out how to operate within lockdown regulations.

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