‘What do we have available?’ Tokyo hopefuls adapt training in COVID-19 era

Amid the monotony of quarantine life that people had to put up with due to the outbreak of COVID19, housebound residents in one corner of Los Angeles were treated to the startling sight of an Olympic champion sprinting down their block at full speed.

The athlete was six-time Olympic gold medalist Allyson Felix, America’s most decorated track athlete.

With tracks closed down due to the pandemic, Felix was among dozens of Tokyo hopefuls who resorted to unorthodox training methods as the world went on lockdown and the 2020 Games were pushed back a year.

“I’ve gone for runs before in my neighborhood but I never have sprinted through the streets,” Felix, 35, told reporters during the threeday Team USA virtual media summit.

Felix, who also owns 16 world championships medals and plans to compete in the 200 and 400meter sprint events at the Olympic trials in June, said coach Bob Kersee used a measuring wheel to mark out distances “on literally the street in front of my door.”

“Seeing some of my neighbors come out kind of like wondering what’s going on and hearing him with his very energetic yelling and all of that – so that’s probably been the most bizarre thing,” said Felix.

As the pandemic upended daily life for millions across the country, aspiring Olympians came up with ingenious ways to carry on with some form of training.

Thirty-year-old judoka Angelica Delgado resorted to throwing her fiance around their one-bedroom apartment.

Shot putter Ryan Crouser, who won gold at Rio, went to a hardware store and built his own portable shot put ring, setting up shop at an elementary school and drawing curious stares from passers-by.

“The theme of 2020 was ‘What do we have available?’ and not ‘What don’t we have available’,” said Crouser, 28. “Because there was a pretty short list of what we had.”

Flyweight boxer Ginny Fuchs, 33, who won silver in the 2019 Pan American Games and is gunning for a spot in Tokyo, joined a monthlong Team USA camp set up inside an abandoned department store.

“They still had shoe racks and everything and the checkout counter – no machines or anything,” she said. “It was a little cold because it was in Colorado and we had that big snow storm and there were no heaters. We had to bring in little heaters.

“During this pandemic, you have to figure it out, you have to make things work and we did.”

Olympic organizers to secure 300 hotel rooms for athletes with COVID-19

Tokyo Olympic organizers plan to prepare 300 hotel rooms for athletes who test positive for the coronavirus at this summer’s Games but show no or minor symptoms of COVID-19, Kyodo news agency said on Sunday.

Japan’s government is placing Tokyo under a month-long state of “quasi-emergency” from Monday to combat surging infections, less than a month after a broader state of emergency was lifted for the capital and Olympic host.

The Tokyo organizing committee plans to reserve an entire hotel located a few kilometers away from the athletes’ village in the Harumi waterfront district, which will likely cost several million dollars, Kyodo said, citing several unnamed sources.

Coronavirus-positive athletes and other Games participants who do not require hospitalization will be quarantined in the rooms for 10 days in principle, and medical staff will treat them around the clock, it said.

The committee will also prepare about 30 special vehicles to transport the patients to the hotel, according to Kyodo.

Athletes will receive COVID-19 tests every four days at least under rules unveiled in February for the Tokyo Games, scheduled to begin in late July after a one-year delay due to the pandemic. More guidance on isolation and testing is to come in April.

Japan has recorded more than 500,000 infections and nearly 9,400 deaths, public broadcaster NHK said on Saturday, low compared to most other major economies. But concerns about the new wave of infections are rising ahead of the Games. (Reuters)