After months of uncertainty, the US Open, one of the four tennis Grand Slams, and the Tour de France got underway this week, albeit 63 days late in the case of the most famous race on the international cycling calendar.

The road to both these major global events taking place has been fraught with difficulties for organisers amid the coronavirus crisis, challenges which have continued into the competitions themselves and will likely be hanging over their heads until they both conclude later this month.

Several well-documented, high-profile withdrawals blighted the build-up to the US Open in New York - one of the American states worst-hit by COVID-19 - while some of the game’s top players, including men’s world number one Novak Djokovic, were among those to test positive for coronavirus shortly before entering a "bubble" created to ensure the event could be held safely.

Frenchman Benoît Paire then tested positive on the eve of the tournament, providing another logistical headache for the United States Tennis Association.

Paire's COVID-19 result reportedly led to seven others who had contact with the world number 23 being placed in a "bubble inside the bubble". This included Kristina Mladenovic, who claimed players had been treated like "prisoners" in a fiery rant after her second-round exit yesterday.

"The conditions are atrocious," Mladenovic told Reuters.

"If I had known that playing cards for 40 minutes with a player who tested positive, but ultimately negative, would have resulted in these consequences, I would never have set foot in this tournament.

"What they are forcing us to go through is abominable. I want my freedom back. I feel like we are prisoners here."

Over in France, a surge in the number of coronavirus cases in the Alpes-Maritimes region, site of the opening stages of the Tour, just days before the Grand Depart plunged the race into doubt, while four members of the Lotto-Soudal team were sent home prior to the opening stage due to two "non-negative" PCR tests. 

Such is the extent of the concern over the Tour that International Cycling Union President David Lappartient has admitted it would be a "miracle" if the event finishes as planned in Paris on September 20.

These hurdles are of course not limited to the Tour and the US Open but have served as a reminder of the perils of organising sports events during a pandemic.

There have been other notable examples of the challenges facing organisers and Federations since sport began to tentatively emerge from the shackles of the COVID-19 virus.

Two teams - Slovakia’s Slovan Bratislava and FC Drita of Kosovo - forfeited their UEFA Champions League qualifiers last month due to positive tests within the two teams, while a similar fate befell another Kosovan team, Prishtina, in the Europa League preliminary round.

Slovan, whose qualifier with KI Klaksvik was twice postponed after two different groups in the Slovakian club's squad reported positive cases, appealed their effective exclusion from the Champions League to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in a last-ditch attempt to prevent the Faroe Islands-based side from playing the Swiss club Young Boys in the next round.

The verdict from the CAS, which dismissed Slovan’s request for an urgent interim ruling to postpone the match in Switzerland, came around three hours before the game’s scheduled kick off. A decision in favour of Slovan would have thrown an already congested qualification schedule into further chaos.

UEFA could certainly do without such issues. The governing body, which holds teams responsible if they cannot fulfil qualifying fixtures under its updated rules for the safe playing of matches, at one point had been organising qualifiers for the 2020-2021 European season while the previous campaign remained incomplete because of complications caused by the COVID-19 crisis.

Also in August, four matches in the Scottish Premier League were postponed as a result of a combination of players breaking lockdown rules and positive coronavirus tests. Those responsible met the ire of the country’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who accused players of proving "incapable of living up to their responsibilities".

Some believe the new European football season could also be under threat as a result of a rising number of cases in players who have made use of the short break by going on holiday.

In baseball, Major League Baseball was forced to postpone the Miami Marlins' first seven matches following an outbreak of coronavirus in the squad, where at least 17 players and coaches tested positive for COVID-19.

The Miami Marlins added 17 players to their roster following the positive tests, prompting an unusual sporting scenario. "Some of the guys I’ve never met," the team’s manager Don Mattingly said prior to a match against the Baltimore Orioles.

Similar postponements have occurred in rugby league in Britain, with all three of the first round of matches in the Super League affected by positive tests from within clubs.

News of golfers testing positive was frequent shortly after the resumption of the PGA and European Tours, including one case where American John Catlin and his caddie Nathan Mulrooney were withdrawn from a tournament after breaching coronavirus measures by having dinner at a restaurant outside of the event bubble.

Other sports have of course been impacted, and what many of the cases show is how organisers, federations and other bodies involved are heavily reliant on everyone buying into the protocols, countermeasures and rules they are having to implement to make sure events can be held safely during the pandemic.

Just one positive test can call an entire event into question. Plenty of these have not been the fault of the athlete, coach or staff member involved, but others have been the result of a lapse in judgement or even an arrogant ignorance towards the severity of the situation sport, and indeed the world, finds itself in.

It is these cases which need to be weeded out if sport is to continue on the path towards something resembling normality - however distant a prospect that may be.