Bundesliga: Bayern brace themselves against coronavirus chaos with their youngsters

You may. You are not allowed. They are allowed. The week that is coming to an end has demanded extreme flexibility from Munich's sailing athletes with the aim of participating in the fourth league summit of the season in Kiel-Schilksee in Schleswig-Holstein. Not all clubs will start the races on Friday with top crews. The Bayerischer Yacht-Club (BYC), which is currently in fourteenth place in the 1st Bundesliga table despite previous highs, can "only" compete with its junior team this weekend in the former Olympic sailing area, which should actually have started at the same time in the final of the Junior Bundesliga at the Mühlenberger Segel-Club on the Elbe. The team around helmsman Felix Kaiser, which is in sixth place in the junior national league and has an average age of 19, would still have had a chance of winning the title in the battle with their peers. Now, however, the young aces will have to race 100 kilometres away in the seniors' competition and put their skills to the test in the fight against relegation.

The decision by BYC manager Ilja Wolf was preceded by a rollercoaster ride through the changing corona rules, which in the meantime would not only have required Munich sailors to quarantine when entering Schleswig-Holstein, but also two corona tests in succession, each with negative results. Because it has only been clear since Wednesday evening that it is now possible without the conditions after all - according to the message from Bundesliga project manager Anke Lukosch to BYC manager Ilja Wolf - the originally planned BYC team would have been eligible to start after all, but after the back and forth the sailors were no longer able to change other plans and leave for the north so quickly. So they are sending their youngsters, who have already been able to gain first league experience this season and came home in mid-table.

"We had originally registered Kicker Schäfer and his team," reports Wolf, "they had also trained very intensively in recent weeks. I then had to cancel all of them due to the regulations. At 10 p.m. last night, league project manager Anke Lukosch informed us that we could go ahead after all. However, the team wouldn't have been able to make it with the almost immediate departure. So we decided to withdraw the junior team from the final at the MSC and send them to Kiel. One of the juniors is also from Munich, but we have been informed that the rule has been cancelled. The annoying thing is that they can no longer race in the junior league."

Micki Liebl, team manager of the Münchner Yacht-Club (MYC, 15th in the table) and himself in Barcelona before the start of a mini-race, told YACHT online on Thursday that his club was able to send the originally planned team around helmsman Manuel Wunderle "at the last minute". The Munich team had also initially considered merging with their junior team as a result of the strict coronavirus restrictions because a crew member of the senior team lives in Munich. However, after some back and forth overnight and the reversal of the team car that had already departed, the original crew has now arrived in Schilksee. Micki Liebl says: "Our team originally wanted to arrive earlier and train. Then there were restrictions and then yesterday we found out that Schleswig-Holstein had cancelled the risk assessment by the city of Munich. I hope our team can still get on the water today and that they can cope with everything mentally. And then we hope that it doesn't go the other way round again in the next few days."

Like the MYC team, the two-time German club champions and twelfth in the table from the German Touring Yacht Club (DTYC) can line up complete and according to plan. This was confirmed by Patrick Follmann, one of the two team managers. "We had already come to terms with not being allowed to start at all and had cancelled our accommodation in the meantime. The statement on this was also formulated: That we regret this very much. Almost all of our team members are registered in Munich. Including most of the juniors, which is why we couldn't have done much about it. However, these rules are not made by the clubs and not by the league, which is therefore not to be blamed in this context. It would just have been nicer if we had thought clearly about such a situation beforehand. We wrote an email to the other southern clubs about this at the start of the season, but unfortunately we didn't hear anything concrete. Now, in the event of non-participation, the average of the points earned in the previous regattas is to be used. This means that several of the clubs affected may slip into the relegation zone, even though it's not their fault. But for now, we're happy that it worked out after all." Julian Stückl, Max Weiss, Laura Fischer and Paul Mothwurf will be racing for the German Touring Yacht Club this weekend.

Leading the table ahead of the penultimate league summit in Kiel-Schilksee are the record champions from the Norddeutsche Regatta Verein, ahead of the Segel- und Motorboot Club Überlingen and the high-flyers from OneKiel. Here to see the current Bundesliga table.