Olympians fear Games cancellation
Coronavirus issue clouds 2020 Olympics, leaves local athletes in training on edge
Becoming an Olympic athlete is not a new year’s resolution.
Young men and women slog through years of training just for a fleeting shot at competing in the Olympic Games. They put careers on hold, delay weddings and children, all for an opportunity that only comes around every four years.
So hearing a long-serving International Olympic Committee official like Canada’s Dick Pound say the 2020 Tokyo Games may be cancelled because of the coronavirus landed like a gut punch to Windsor’s contingent of Olympic athletes.
Marathoner Dayna Pidhoresky, basketball’s Miah-marie Langlois and athletics’ Sarah Mitton, a Nova Scotia native who competed for the University of Windsor in shot put, have already qualified for the Summer Games based on performance.
Others such as athletics’ Melissa Bishop-nriagu, Brandon Mcbride, Noelle Montcalm and swimmer Kylie Masse are heavy into training now for upcoming Olympic team selection.
“It’s a scary thought for sure,” said two-time Olympian Bishop-nriagu before she boarded a recent flight to yet another race as she works toward a third Olympic run in the 800 metres.
Pound first raised the prospect of cancellation publicly in an interview with The Associated Press last week. Pound was quoted as saying the IOC will have to make a decision by late May and that moving or rescheduling the Games was unlikely.
The Summer Olympics, a spectacle featuring 11,000 athletes, are scheduled to open July 24.
His comments drew a quick response from other IOC officials and the Japanese government, assuring the world that preparations for Toyko were continuing as planned.
While Pound said in a followup interview with CNN it was premature to talk about cancellation, he added “this clearly does have the potential to become a worldwide issue.”
On Tuesday, Japan’s Olympics minister said the end of May would be an important point in making a decision on whether to hold the Tokyo Games starting on July 24 amid worries the coronavirus could cause the first cancellation since the Second World War.
Seiko Hashimoto said she was aware of the comments by Pound.
On Thursday, the Japanese government closed all schools until late March in an effort to stop the virus from spreading.
The World Health Organization has put the threat at its highest level of alert following more than 3,000 deaths and 88,000 cases globally.
Japan has had 293 cases of coronavirus, including 19 new cases on Tuesday, but none have been fatal. There are 23 people in serious or critical condition.
In Canada, there have been 30 cases diagnosed, including two in Ontario identified Tuesday. Of the Canadian cases, 20 are in Ontario, nine are in British Columbia and one is in Quebec.
Conferences, religious gatherings and competitions on a much smaller scale have already been cancelled around the globe.
“The Olympics is the biggest event in the entire world,” Langlois said in an email from Russia, where she plays professionally. “I do not think people realize how much preparation is put into setting up such events. To cancel such a big event that the entire world tunes in to at the same time seems like it is too early to make such assumptions.”
Langlois and her Canadian teammates, including Chatham’s Bridget Carleton, just qualified for the Olympics last month in Belgium.
This would be the first Olympics for Langlois, a 28-year-old guard and Catholic Central graduate.
Pushing the doubt about Tokyo out of her mind is easier since she’s in the middle of her pro season.
“So I need to play and train still. I don’t finish until the beginning of May and that is when training camp for Team Canada should begin,” she wrote. “At the end of the day, practise makes perfect, so whether it is towards competing in the Olympics in July or getting ready for the next season, training still needs to get done.”
Tecumseh’s Pidhoresky won Canada’s Olympic marathon trials last fall in Ottawa, guaranteeing her a spot on her first Olympic team.
“It was definitely the best moment of my life so far,” the 33-yearold said in a telephone interview from her Vancouver home.
Describing herself as “a worrier,” Pidhoresky knows cancelling the Olympics “definitely feels like it could happen if things are out of control. It would be incredibly disappointing if they are cancelled. It’s not like they can just move it to another year.”
Like many of the athletes interviewed for this story, Pidhoresky will focus on what she can control.
“It’s not the only race on my schedule,” said the Maranatha Christian Academy grad. “I’ll just think of all the races I plan to do this year and focus on that.”
Montcalm, a St. Joseph’s grad, ran the 400-metre hurdles at the 2016 Olympics and despite the demands of working as a registered nurse, she’s been training for Tokyo.
“I’m going to keep training and preparing as if things are going to go ahead as planned,” the 31-yearold said.
“We’ve already seen a lot of events that have been cancelled, but we still have five months before the Olympics. In 2016, we were talking about the Zika virus, and in 2017, teams were hit by the Norwalk virus. I’m just going to keep focused on the task at hand.”
There has never been a peacetime cancellation of the Olympic Games. Both world wars cancelled the event in 1916, 1940 and 1944.