The Vietnam Sports Administration (VSA) is seeking special approval for some essential international sports experts and coaches to enter Vietnam and be quarantined as per regulations to prepare local athletes and sports teams for upcoming tournaments.

These experts and coaches are key people in Vietnam’s swimming, table tennis, archery, and sailing teams, head of VSA’s International Cooperation Office Nguyen Hai Duong told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper.

The requirements for their exceptional entry into Vietnam include holding certificates proving that they are coronavirus negative, Duong said.

The sports professionals have to declare specific information about their arrival date and point of entry in advance.

After entering Vietnam, they must be quarantined for 14 days as per regulations.

In light of the suspension of international flights, Chinese experts in swimming, table tennis, and archery will enter Vietnam by road.

“We’re currently completing procedures and sending dispatches to authorities in the northern provinces which border China to facilitate the entry of the Chinese experts,” Duong said.

Joseph Donnelly, an Australian sailing expert, will be boarding a government-arranged flight to Vietnam from Australia that will also bring Vietnamese citizens home, according to Duong.

Vietnam’s swimming team is waiting for the arrival of Chinese expert Huang Guohui to train young swimmer Nguyen Huy Hoang for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, which has been postponed until 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hoang is the only Vietnamese swimmer qualified for the competition in Japan.

Meanwhile, Yu Zhiguo, who returned to his hometown in Shenzhen City in China’s Guangdong Province in December 2019, is needed by the Vietnamese national table tennis team in the run-up to the 2020 World Team Table Tennis Championships in South Korea in September and the biennial Southeast Asian Table Tennis Championships in October.

Vietnam has denied entry to all foreigners from March 22 to control the COVID-19 pandemic.

People of Vietnamese origin and their kin holding visa exemption certificates are also prohibited from entering the Southeast Asian country.

But the government still considers making exceptions for those entering Vietnam for diplomatic, official, and special purposes.

Such cases will be screened for the novel virus, subject to mandatory health status declaration, and quarantined upon arrival.

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