I’LL BE 47 BUT WILL GO FOR GAMES NEXT YEAR!
IT IS totally the right decision and it is brilliant everyone now knows where they stand. Personally, I will still be trying to qualify for Tokyo 2021 as a 47-year-old, but for me that is secondary at this stage. To be honest, it got to a point a few weeks ago where it became inappropriate to even think about sport while people were sick and losing lives. No one knows quite when the problem is going to end and in that scenario, even something that we all love, like the Olympics, is not important. Health and welfare had to come first and this decision enables that. It is about the thousands of spectators visiting Tokyo — and all the volunteers and officials — who would have been put at risk. From the perspective of athletes, this clarity is important. We were increasingly uncomfortable with the pressure to keep training at a time when others are being advised to stay inside. Without the postponement, you carry on. I was lucky in that I am surrounded by country lanes so I could go running and maintain social distancing, but even then, the other day a guy came past me on a bike and covered his mouth. This is affecting all of us, in all walks of life.
a big problem on the sporting side is that it was never going to be a level playing field. Different nations are in different stages of dealing with the virus and it would have been unfair on those in the worst affected places.
This decision helps with all of that. For me, I’ll keep going. People might say I am deluded to try to qualify but I would love to make it to a sixth Olympics. The fact they are next year instead of this does not change that.