Indian Hockey team withdraws from 2022 Commonwealth Games

NEW DELHI: The Indian Hockey team pulled out of next year's Birmingham Commonwealth Games' hockey competition, citing COVID-19 concerns and UK's discriminatory quarantine rules for travellers from the country.

Hockey India President Gyanandro Ningombam communicated the federation's decision to Indian Olympic Association (IOA) President Narinder Batra.

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Hockey India reasoned that there is only a 32-day window available between Birmingham Games (July 28-August 8) and the Hangzhou Asian Games (September 10-25) and it can't risk sending its players to the UK which has been one of the worst affected countries by the coronavirus pandemic.

The UK recently refused to recognise India's COVID-19 vaccination certificates and imposed a 10-day hard quarantine on travellers from the country even if they were fully vaccinated.

quarantine protocol for all UK nationals.

India imposed reciprocal curbs on all British nationals arriving in the country after UK's restrictions.

Under India's new norms, all British nationals arriving here from the UK, irrespective of their vaccination status, will have to produce the result of the RT-PCR test done within 72 hours before travel.

They will also have to undertake two more RT-PCR tests, one on their arrival at the airport in India and the second one on Day 8 after arrival.

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