While the Italian federal government has approved the return to training for athletes of a national interest starting on Monday, barring a last minute change, that won’t include swimmers.
The decree by the federal government did not specifically list whether swimming is among the individual sports that can begin on Monday, and the Italian Swimming Federation’s (Federnuoto) guidelines must be accepted before training can begin.
Federnuoto president Paolo Barelli said on Saturday that they were ready to open 2-3 federal centers but will not do so before having received guidelines from the Scientific Technical Committee.
The reopening of training for top level athletes is part of Italy’s “phase 2” plan. If all goes according to plan, more openings of sporting activities was planned for 2 weeks from now.
Shortly after publishing of the original report, the Veneto Regional Committee, which is in charge of the region where Olympic champion and World Record holder Federica Pellegrini trains, has said that they will restart training for professional and non-professional athletes, behind closed doors. Originally, the committee had said they wouldn’t because of the financial burden of the two-month shutdown of the economy. The committee says that it doesn’t have the resources to reopen its pools for the use of just a few swimmers.
Specifically, Pellegrini, according to Barelli, will begin training at the national center of Verona.
In Verona, specifically, the regulations will require swimmers to avoid gatherings and keep a distance of 2 meters between each other.
Italy has been one of the hardest-hit countries in the world among the global coronavirus outbreak. The country has 210,717 coronavirus infections confirmed, with 28,884 deaths caused by COVID-19. Only the United States has more deaths.
