Australia’s swimmers say Tokyo Olympics not a level playing field

Australia’s swimmers say the Tokyo Olympics have already been compromised as far as fair play is concerned.

Swimming Australia head coach Jacco Verhaeren. Picture: Brendan Radke

The Tokyo Olympics have already been compromised as far as fair play is concerned, with swim programs in a number of European countries already closed because of the coronavirus, Australian swimmers said in a global message on Friday.

While Swimming Australia and the likely Olympic and Paralympic swimmers have stopped short of calling for the Tokyo Games, due to start on July 24, to be cancelled or postponed, they believe the International Olympic Committee must consider fair play and the health of the athletes when they make their decision on the Games.

“A lot of people are making contact with myself, definitely from Europe and we as an organisation have been in contact with the USA as well,” said Australia’s Dutch-born head coach Jacco Verhaeren. “They live in circumstances where there is a lockdown, meaning you can’t even go out any more, not even for a casual walk on the street and that is getting stricter by the hour.

“I’m close to the Netherlands. They have shut down all their high-performance centres, as is the case in France, as is the case in Germany and many other countries and, of course, Italy. The situation is severe. And although we can’t look into the future here, and we won’t, we need to be ready in Australia for what’s coming.”

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All Olympic sports require an extraordinary commitment to training but swimming is especially demanding. Any time lost in training is critical.

“Along the way in Olympic careers, people come across setbacks, illness, injuries but this far exceeds that, with a massive disadvantage around the world now for athletes who are not in a position … whole countries not in a position to prepare themselves for anything really,” Verhaeren added. “We are talking from a position of strength. We are nowhere near to the circumstances that other athletes and coaches are exposed to at the moment.”

Swimming Australia chief executive Leigh Russell stressed that her entire organisation was fully committed to the Olympics going ahead. “We absolutely want the Games to continue and we are preparing for that but we also are acknowledging that we want a level playing field for everyone and right now around the world we are holding concerns that people can’t achieve that at this time,” Russell said.

She stressed that she had kept the Australian Olympic Committee completely informed of the message the swimmers sent out to the world on Friday.

“The way that we do leadership at Swimming Australia is never to not engage with people and consult, so certainly we have expressed our view to the AOC. I want to stress that the AOC and the IOC are in an incredibly difficult position and working through things methodically and I think that is exactly what they ought to be doing.”

As the federal government’s precautions stand at present, the Olympic trials set down for Adelaide from June 14-16 cannot go ahead in the existing form, given the restrictions of 100 people gathering at an indoor venue.

“We are fortunate with swimming that every pool is 50m and almost every pool has the required equipment to execute races,” Verhaeren said. “If all pools close, we have to look at an entirely different way of qualifying athletes and obviously we need to discuss this with the AOC and it needs to meet IOC regulations as well, because probably by then you are going way outside the normal and regular qualifying procedures.”