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Some sport academies for kids cancel sessions, refund fees following latest Covid-19 rules for unvaccinated children

SINGAPORE — Some sporting academies for kids are resorting to cancelling training sessions, which in turn affects operators of indoor sports facilities, as stricter infection control measures kick in this month for unvaccinated children aged 12 and below.

Youths are seen training at an indoor basketball court on Feb 6, 2022.

Youths are seen training at an indoor basketball court on Feb 6, 2022.

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  • Some sporting groups have resorted to cancelling training sessions for children aged 12 and below who have yet to be vaccinated against Covid-19
  • Indoor venues see cancellations by academies as well, as children from this age group take time to progressively complete their vaccinations
  • Meanwhile, some gyms made tweaks to their training arrangements to comply with the new measures
  • Others prefer to adopt a stricter stance to avoid "accidentally breaching" any regulation

SINGAPORE — Some sporting academies for kids are resorting to cancelling training sessions, which in turn affects operators of indoor sports facilities, as stricter infection control measures kick in this month for unvaccinated children aged 12 and below.

According to those that TODAY spoke to, ceasing of training sessions is the latest among a string of steps that they had taken to comply with the changing Covid-19 regulations impacting the sporting sector.

In Sport Singapore’s latest advisory, unvaccinated children aged 12 and below can take part in masked indoor sports activities in groups of up to five if they are from the same household.

They are also allowed to be in these groups with other children who have been vaccinated. 

The advisory, updated on Jan 27 and effective from Feb 1, is an expansion of existing conditions for unmasked indoor sports activities, where the same-household rule applies.

Apart from cancelling sessions and refunding fees, some academies and indoor sporting venues that TODAY contacted said they have had to reconfigure training arrangements or shift to outdoor venues.

‘LOSE 20 PER CENT OF MY STUDENTS’

One such operator is Big Blue Floorball School, which conducts floorball training for children as young as three years old.

Its founder Kristian Thorbjornsen said that already this year, he has had to refund parents for the lessons that their children had to skip while waiting to complete their vaccination regiment.

Current guidelines advise individuals to avoid strenuous activities for about two weeks after each vaccination dose.

However, the biggest impact that he felt is on the Super Junior category, comprising children aged six and below. 

The youngest eligible age to get jabbed under the Covid-19 national vaccination programme is five years old.

Mr Thorbjornsen explained that most of the Super Junior students cannot be split up to join older groups of students due to the gap in skills level. He also does not have the resources to conduct one-on-one training with them.

Thus, he had no choice but to stop training for those under the age of five until the vaccination programme is extended to them.

“In total I will lose 20 per cent of my total students,” said Mr Thorbjornsen. 

Mr Rajesh Mulani, co-owner of The Cage, which owns indoor and outdoor sports venues, similarly witnessed the younger groups being most affected by the latest move.

“Our kids academies who operate at Kallang will be affected. Most have cancelled classes this month,” he said.

“The hope is that more children will be fully vaccinated by the end of the month so classes can begin again next month.”

ALTERNATIVE VENUE AND ARRANGEMENTS

SG Basketball, which also runs an academy for youths, currently has 415 students aged 12 and below training at its indoor courts in Chai Chee. This makes up over half of its participants registered at that venue.

“Very few have been double jabbed, so they will nearly all count as unvaccinated,” said its technical director, Mr John McAuliffe.

Fortunately, the academy also has an outdoor training venue at Turf City, which is where they hope to redirect most of their Chai Chee students to. However, the total number they will be able to transfer would be subject to the venue capacity.

For outdoor sport classes, regardless of whether participants are masked or not, multiple groups of up to five are allowed. There can be up to 50 people in total, including the instructor, or up to the venue capacity limit, whichever is lower.

TODAY’s check on Evolve MMA, a mixed martial arts academy that also runs training programmes for children, found that the gym will be splitting its junior participants into groups of up to five, with only one unvaccinated child per group.

The academy has yet to respond on how this arrangement would impact its overall operations.

Ms Roanna Fassam, a parent of two unvaccinated children aged four and six who also attend martial arts classes, found that the recent measures have little impact on their training.

The gym that her children attend, which she declined to name, lines up children in two rows with a distance of 1.5 to 2 metres between each child. They wear masks during training.

And in lieu of sparring partners, they instead practise their moves with dummies, she explained.

“In that sense, it’s individual (practice), but they are still in the same class, doing the same things. Just that they don’t have that kind of interaction that I would have preferred. But it’s better than nothing,” said the 42-year-old public officer.

Nonetheless, she is receptive of these changes to better protect the safety of her children, especially since she has heard of numerous Covid-19 cases involving the young lately.

"Having these precautions, to me, it's a relief. And to me, I feel safer," she said.

Meanwhile, some other indoor sporting venues have been relatively spared of any impact arising from the latest measures. This is largely because most of their users are adults or older teenagers.

Mr Tony Tan, business manager of Coldcut — which owns and operates Red Quarters indoor floorball training facilities, counts his organisation as one of the lucky ones, as they have been involved in a pilot run since late last year which allows them to accept bigger groups to play the sport.

Under the pilot scheme, groups of up to 10 players are allowed to train, provided they are fully vaccinated and they take an on-site antigen rapid test.

Apart from the youth academy Big Blue Floorball School which books its venue on a regular basis, Coldcut generally does not receive bookings for players under 12.

Similarly for Arina Badminton, which operates two badminton halls, the youngest users of its facilities are secondary level students training with their schools.

Regardless, its senior manager, Mr Kwek Choon Sen Alan, said that his team prefers to err on the side of caution when it comes to abiding by the evolving Covid-19 regulations. They only let in vaccinated individuals — regardless of their age.

“If let’s say we try to also take in people who are not vaccinated, then it might be confusing,” he said. “What if we accidentally breach the rules?”

Related topics

Covid-19 coronavirus sport

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