Athletes are being forced to take health risks, Olympic pole vault champion Katerina Stefanidi said, as competitors started to speak out about holding the Tokyo Games amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Stefanidi and British heptathlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson voiced concerns after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) on Tuesday said that it was “fully committed” to running the Games as scheduled from July 24.
An IOC member called the body’s stance “insensitive and irresponsible,” saying that athletes were facing “anxiety and heartbreak” as they try to train during the virus emergency.
Photo: Reuters
Stefanidi, one of Greece’s most prominent athletes, was scheduled to hand the ceremonial flame to Japanese officials before the Greek leg of the torch relay was scrapped due to COVID-19.
“The IOC wants us to keep risking our health, our family’s health and public health to train every day?” Stefanidi said on Twitter. “You are putting us in danger right now, today, not in 4 months.”
Olympic qualifying tournaments are among the swath of sports events that have been canceled or postponed, with only 57 percent of athletes booking their places so far.
“It’s unbelievable,” Stefanidi said. “What about team sports that have to train together? What about swimming? What about gymnastics that they touch the same objects?”
“There is zero consideration of the risk they are putting us in right now,” she added.
Johnson-Thompson, the world heptathlon champion, slammed the IOC for telling athletes to train “as best they can,” saying that it was at odds with stringent government health measures.
“I feel under pressure to train and keep the same routine which is impossible,” Johnson-Thompson wrote on Twitter. “It’s difficult [to] approach the season when everything has changed in the lead-up apart from the ultimate deadline.”
Doubts are increasingly being expressed about holding the Olympics on time. An Olympic gymnastics qualifier in Tokyo, doubling as a test event, yesterday became the latest competition to be canceled.
A day earlier, the deputy head of the Japanese Olympic committee said that he had tested positive for the coronavirus.
However, the IOC insisted that “there is no need for any drastic decisions at this stage,” saying that “any speculation at this moment would be counterproductive.”
Hayley Wickenheiser, a Canadian IOC member with four ice hockey gold medals, said that “this crisis is bigger than even the Olympics.”
“From an athlete perspective, I can only imagine and try to empathize with the anxiety and heartbreak athletes are feeling right now,” she said in a statement.
“The uncertainty of not knowing where you’re going to train tomorrow as facilities close and qualification events are canceled all over the world would be terrible if you’ve been training your whole life for this,” she said.
“I think the IOC insisting this will move ahead, with such conviction, is insensitive and irresponsible given the state of humanity,” she added.
Shohei Ohtani and Clayton Kershaw on Friday joined their Los Angeles Dodgers teammates in sticking their fists out to show off their glittering World Series rings at a ceremony. “There’s just a lot of excitement, probably more than I can ever recall with the Dodger fan base and our players,” manager Dave Roberts said before Los Angeles rallied to beat the Detroit Tigers 8-5 in 10 innings. “What a way to cap off the first two days of celebrations,” Roberts said afterward. “By far the best opening week I’ve ever experienced. I just couldn’t have scripted it any better.” A choir in the
The famously raucous Hong Kong Sevens are to start today in a big test for a shiny new stadium at the heart of a major US$3.85 billion sports park in the territory. Officials are keeping their fingers crossed that the premier event in Hong Kong’s sporting and social calendar goes off without a hitch at the 50,000-seat Kai Tak Stadium. They hope to entice major European soccer teams to visit in the next few months, with reports in December last year saying that Liverpool were in talks about a pre-season tour. Coldplay are to perform there next month, all part of Hong Kong’s
After fleeing Sudan when civil war erupted, Al-Hilal captain Mohamed Abdelrahman and his teammates have defied the odds to reach the CAF Champions League quarter-finals. They are today to face title-holders Al-Ahly of Egypt in Cairo, with the return match in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, on Tuesday next week. Al-Hilal and biggest domestic rivals Al-Merrikh relocated to Mauritania after a power struggle broke out in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and a paramilitary force. The civil war has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced more than 12 million people, according to the UN. The Democratic Republic of the Congo-born Al-Hilal
Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernandez and Tommy Edman on Thursday smashed home runs to give the reigning World Series champions the Los Angeles Dodgers a 5-4 victory over Detroit on the MLB’s opening day in the US. The Dodgers, who won two season-opening games in Tokyo last week, raised their championship banner on a day when 28 clubs launched the season in the US. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts shuffled his batting lineup with all four leadoff hitters finally healthy as Ohtani was followed by Mookie Betts, then Hernandez and Freddie Freeman in the cleanup spot, switching places with Hernandez. “There’s a Teoscar tax to
RSS