Japanese nurse Arisa Tsubata has trained around her work shifts for more than a year to prepare for a final Olympic boxing qualifier in the hope of making it to the Tokyo Games this summer.
That dream was shattered after the International Olympic Committee (IOC) canceled the boxing qualifier to take place next month and said it would allocate spots to athletes based on their world rankings.
The change in criteria has effectively shut the door on many Olympic hopefuls such as Tsubata, whose rankings are not good enough to earn them an automatic qualification for the Olympic Games in Tokyo.
Photo: Reuters
Other qualifying competitions for the Olympics have also been canceled.
In order to focus on her boxing, the 27-year-old quit her job at a major hospital in January to take on a less demanding and lower paid position at a smaller psychiatric clinic.
Since then, she has trained more than three hours per day during the week and extra hours on Saturdays, only taking Sundays off to rest or to get a massage.
“It’s very disappointing,” said Tsubata, who works at the Life Support Clinic in Tokyo. “I had been working so hard for a year after the postponement of the Olympics, and it’s so frustrating that I don’t even have the right to compete.”
Japan has said that the Olympic Games, delayed last year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, would go ahead, but questions remain over how it would hold the massive sporting event as the country fights a fourth wave of COVID-19 infections.
“‘Why did I aim for the Olympics when the coronavirus happened?’ I asked myself,” she said, adding: “Who knew the coronavirus pandemic would come at this time?”
Her feelings of frustration and uncertainty are shared by many athletes whose careers have been thrown into limbo, after the pandemic dashed some people’s life-long dreams of participating in the global sporting event.
The IOC has a June 29 deadline to wrap up qualifications for this year’s Olympics and with the canceled qualifiers, it has to allocate about 53 spots in boxing across several regions based on ranking points since 2017.
In COVID-19-ravaged India, Santiago Nieva, the head coach of the country’s national boxing team, also remembers the “heartbreaking moment” when he delivered the news to four boxers.
“You feel like you’re taking away their dreams,” Nieva said. “They became depressed ... they were empty, felt empty in the head and body.”
Tsubata started boxing about three years ago to lose weight, but her training coaches quickly encouraged her to compete, and she went on to win Japan’s national boxing championship for the middleweight division in 2019.
As a nurse and a boxer, she has mixed feelings about whether the Olympics due to start in July should go ahead as cases rise.
“As an athlete, considering fellow athletes waiting for this moment, and especially seeing my chance being taken away, I think the Olympics should happen,” she said.
As a nurse, she said that it “might be difficult” for Japan to hold the Games if the spread of COVID-19 is not contained.
For now, Tsubata is trying to stay positive, and is preparing for her international debut at a tournament in Russia this month.
She said that it is too early to think about the Olympic Games in Paris in 2024 and worries she might be too old by then to keep up with the physical strength needed to compete.
“I can’t say I am aiming for the next Olympics in Paris, but what I can do is try to keep working hard step by step, at any competitions ahead, small or big,” Tsubata said.
A British skier crashes through wooden fencing on a downhill corner and slams into a pole, breaking his leg. An American hits an icy patch at the bottom of a hill and crashes into a fence, breaking one ski and twisting the other, also breaking his leg. Another American, training before a biathlon race, slides out on an icy corner and flies off the trail into a tree, breaking ribs and a shoulder blade, and punctures a lung. These were not scenes from high-speed Alpine or ski cross events. They happened on cross-country ski and biathlon tracks made with artificial snow.
The Australian Border Force is investigating whether Novak Djokovic incorrectly declared he had not traveled and would not do so for two weeks before his flight to Australia, in the latest twist in the tennis star’s visa cancellation saga. Questions have been raised about the declaration completed by an agent for Djokovic, with social media posts seemingly showing he was in Belgrade on Christmas Day before flying to Australia from Spain on Jan. 4. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison yesterday received a call from Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabi, in which he sought to manage the diplomatic fallout of the overturned visa
COURT BATTLE: The world No. 1’s appeal is that the revocation was not based on the health risk he might pose, but how he might be perceived by anti-vaccine protesters Novak Djokovic faces deportation again after the Australian government yesterday revoked his visa for a second time, the latest twist in the ongoing saga over whether the world No. 1 would be allowed to compete in the Australian Open, despite being unvaccinated for COVID-19. Australian Minister for Immigration, Citizenship, Migrant Services and Multicultural Affairs Alex Hawke said that he used his ministerial discretion to cancel the 34-year-old’s visa on public interest grounds — just three days before play begins at the Australian Open, where Djokovic has won a record nine of his 20 Grand Slam titles. Three hours later, Djokovic’s lawyers began
World No. 2 Aryna Sabalenka’s Australian Open preparations were in tatters on Tuesday when she self-destructed for the second week in a row and was almost unable to serve at an Adelaide warm-up event. A week after her delivery deserted her at the first of two Adelaide lead-in tournaments, Sabalenka suffered the same fate as she was stunned in three sets by world No. 93 Rebecca Peterson 5-7, 6-1, 7-5. Sabalenka dished up 21 double faults and was reduced to serving underarm in the second and third sets in a desperate effort to get the ball into play. She took so much
RSS