A Tale of Two Tennis Players

Jeremy Chardy, Novak Djokovic, and the prices they have paid.

On March 13, 2021, the European Medicines Agency issued an announcement. Based on two large “French and Nordic” studies, the EMA’s safety committee (PRAC) reviewed the risk of myocarditis and pericarditis after receiving COVID-19 vaccines produced by Pfizer and Moderna, and reached the following conclusion:

Overall, the outcome of the review confirms the risk of myocarditis and pericarditis, which is already reflected in the product information for these two vaccines, and provides further details on these two conditions.

The review singled out young males as particularly susceptible, though it still characterized the conditions as “very rare.” The announcement received little press in Europe. A notable exception occurred in Brussels—seat of the European Parliament—on August 18, 2021 when the Brussels Times published a report titled “Doctors advise against intensive sport after Covid vaccination.” The doctors issued their advisory after three riders on the Acrog-Tormans Balen cycling club, aged 15-17, developed chest pain during competitions or training a few days after being vaccinated. These cases were characterized as “rare,” but the fact that all occurred at the same time in the same club suggested otherwise. The incidents prompted a cycling federation doctor to point out the EMA warning.

According to Kris Van der Mieren, a doctor at the Belgian Cycling Federation, the Federal Agency for Medicines and Health Products did put out a letter warning of the risks of inflammation of the heart as a result of the two mRNA vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna.

In spite of the EMA warning, professional athletes all over Europe were—per tournament requirements or international travel vaccine mandates—forced to make a difficult choice. Either they agreed to receive the experimental gene therapy injections, or they would have to forgo competing in events.

Around the same time the cycling club incidents were reported, Jeremy Chardy—a French pro tennis player —yielded to pressure to get vaccinated, and he received the Pfizer-BioNTech injections. Until then, the thirty-four-year-old had enjoyed a good year, competing in most major tournaments and earning $570,000 in prize money. A few weeks after receiving the injections, he began to feel unwell and performed poorly at the US Open. His symptoms then worsened to what he described as “paralyzing pains” throughout his body. As he told the Agence France-Presse:

Since I got my vaccine, I have a problem, I have a lot of problems. As a result, I can’t train, I can’t play. I don’t know what to do. The problem is that we have no hindsight on the vaccine. There are people who had similar [side-effects], but the duration [of the issues] were really different. In my head, it’s difficult, because I don’t know how long it will last.

For now, my season is stopped and I don’t know when I’ll start again. I turn 35 in February so for the moment I’m maybe a little bit negative, but this is the first time the idea that next season might be my last has crossed my mind. I’m thinking about it… It’s difficult because I was enjoying myself and I wanted to play longer.

What happened to Jeremy Chardy didn’t stop the Australian government from committing a repugnant act of tyranny against the Serbian pro tennis player Novak Djokovic. The details of what Djokovic (who was both Covid recovered and Covid tested) had to endure—first receiving a temporary visa to compete in the Australian Open, and then having it revoked after his entry—are well-known. Here is a detailed chronology of the shabby and sordid affair.

The state’s (purely political) explanation for its conduct was that Djokovic’s “presence could incite civil unrest and encourage anti-vaccine sentiment.” Why didn’t the authorities make this determination before Djokovic flew God knows how many hours to reach the former penal colony and be placed in quarantine? Was it incompetence or political grandstanding with a sadistic twist? The incident was one of many indicating the Australian state is now an emergency powers dictatorship, not constrained by constitutional law.

Djokovic responded to this abominable treatment with exceptional grace and stoicism, always maintaining his friendly demeanor, never expressing a hint of bitterness in interviews such as this BBC exclusive.

Since then, the persecution of the great champion has continued in the United States. On August 25, it was announced that he wouldn’t compete in the 2022 US Open due to his unvaccinated status. As a matter of fact and law, the Biden Administration has zero rationale for maintaining its discriminatory policy against visiting foreign nationals. CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky acknowledged in an August 5, 2022 CNN interview that the vaccines do NOT prevent infection or transmission. Moreover, unvaccinated American citizens are now allowed to travel to European countries and return to the United States, so there is zero difference between their contagion risk and that of unvaccinated European visitors such as Djokovic.

The vaccine mandate for foreign visitors is antithetical to America’s founding liberal principles and a disgrace to science and sportsmanship. Even the Canadian government—which often acted like a brutal police state during the pandemic —has urged the Biden Administration to drop the vaccine mandate for foreign travelers. Shame on the Biden Administration.