SA Olympic contenders back postponing Tokyo Games due to coronavirus, as AOC tells athletes to begin preparing for 2021
The state’s Olympic contenders have backed moves to postpone the Tokyo Games due to the coronavirus, as the Australian Olympic Committee tells athletes to start preparing for 2021. READ WHAT THEY SAID.
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South Australian Olympic contenders have backed moves to postpone the Tokyo Games, saying they will be devastated if the showpiece event goes ahead without them.
Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Sunday said the overseas travel ban, put in place to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, extended to Australian athletes bidding for a Games berth.
It comes as the International Olympic Committee announced it was considering rescheduling the Games and the Australian Olympic Committee told participants to start preparing for 2021.
Adelaide-born, Brisbane-based long-jumper Henry Frayne said postponing the event was the only viable option, as the COVID-19 pandemic took hold globally.
“Sport is somewhat insignificant at this time,” said the Commonwealth Games silver medallist, who is aiming for a third Olympics.
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“At this stage, it’s inevitable that the Olympics will be postponed and I think people should be just worried about their health and the health of society.
“If the Olympics went ahead and I wasn’t there, I’d be disappointed.
“But my current opinion is it’s not feasible for the Olympics in any way to go ahead.”
Australians have been barred indefinitely from all non-essential international travel, a restriction which appears unlikely to be lifted in time for the July 24-August 9 Olympics.
An IOC statement on Monday said it will not cancel the Games, but will decide in the next four weeks if it can overcome the logistic challenges of moving them one or two years.
Frayne, 29, along with national 3000m steeplechase champion Max Stevens, said they would continue to pursue an Olympic berth if the event was shifted.
But Croweater Stevens said it would be a crushing blow for Australian athletes to miss out altogether if the Games proceeded as originally planned.
“Imagine you do your trade apprenticeship or you do a uni degree and at the end of that four years your told ‘your job doesn’t exist any more, you can’t graduate’,” Stevens, 25, said.
“That’s the comparable thing to it (not attending the Olympics).
“But you’re listening to stuff that’s going in Europe with doctors having to make a call about who gets to live and who gets treated.
“In the long run, we all understand that the decision that’s going to be made is going to be the right decision for us as a country and a civilisation.
“Everyone is in the same boat.”
Australia’s travel ban means the nation might be forced to sit out its first modern Games since they were established in 1896.
But the AOC announced on Monday it had cancelled its Tokyo 2020 plans and was already working towards the middle of next year, as it prioritised the health and safety of athletes.
Calls to reschedule the event were further strengthened by a request from the powerful US swimming and athletics governing bodies.
Beach volleyballer Mariafe Artacho del Solar, half of Australia’s world No. 5 pairing alongside Taliqua Clancy, trained for the final time at the SA Sports Institute on Monday.
Qualifying events, including this month’s season-opening competition on the Gold Coast, had been cancelled before gyms were made close their doors nationally.
The Rio Olympian, 26, hoped the Tokyo Games would be postponed, but realised there were bigger issues at stake.
“It would be hard to believe that you’ve worked so hard and you’ve qualified, but your own government doesn’t allow you to go,” del Solar said.
“But I guess your health comes first.
“We control what we can control and obviously we’ve got a pretty horrific situation with coronavirus.
“If the Olympics get postponed for a whole year, then the preparations and the plans change a bit but we will have the same goals. “Both Taliqua and I are still young and we have maybe two, three more Olympics in us.”
SA’s Oceania karate champion Michelle Wilson has spent more than $65,000 largely self-funding her participation in global qualifying tournaments as she chases a Games debut.
But 39-year-old mother of twins, who was ruled out of Tokyo when her final two selection events were scrapped, was another to endorse shifting the Olympics.
“It feels a bit empty at the moment,” said the +61kg fighter, who will consider again attempting to qualify if the Games are moved.
“I don’t feel like I’ve retired and I don’t feel like the last time I competed three weeks ago was my last event, but it’s all just a bit unknown.
“What makes the Olympics great is the opportunity for the best-of-the-best to come together on a level playing field.
“But for so many sports, there isn’t an equal playing field.
“When all of this (coronavirus) is done and dusted, sport will have such an important role in bringing people and communities back together.
“It would be better to do that in a postponed Games, as opposed to something that’s done with half the people (participants) and empty stadiums.”
The Tokyo Paralympics, scheduled to start on August 25, are equally under threat.
SA-born marathon runner Michael Roeger said plans for winning T46 class gold at his fourth Games were in disarray.
“We just have to keep showing up to training, which is one of the things you can actually control,” said Roeger, who holds four long distance world records for single above elbow/single below elbow amputees. “But people’s health is the most important thing and if they’re cancelled, they’re cancelled.”
Roeger won bronze in the 1500m at the 2016 Paralympics. But he had his sights set on the marathon in Japan, after breaking his own world record by running 2:19:33 in Houston in January.
“It’s been a hard slog and I just want to stand on that podium and hear the national anthem,” said Roeger, whose preparation was hampered by the cancellation of April’s Boston Marathon.
Originally published as SA Olympic contenders back postponing Tokyo Games due to coronavirus, as AOC tells athletes to begin preparing for 2021