The return of sports will require an action plan
Australian framework for rebooting sport outlines what athletes can expect in the months to come
With organized sports halted around the country, elite and recreational athletes pressed pause on their competitive seasons and aspirations. And while Canada’s amateur sports system will receive $72 million in aid from the federal government, there’s no clear timeline for getting Canadians back in the game.
Media attention has been centred on pro athletes, team owners and fans mourning the shutdown of virtually every professional sports league. But there are millions of regular Canadians feeling the same sense of loss at not being able to pull on their own team jersey, cheer on their kids or hang around after a game sharing stories of on-field exploits.
John Harmidy runs a Montreal-area coed softball league that meets Sunday mornings. Coolers, lawn chairs, kids playing on the sidelines and adults throwing the ball around the bases have been part of an important weekly ritual for 18 years. Given the restrictions on gathering in groups, the league is in danger of being suspended for the summer.
“Everyone is disappointed,” said Harmidy, who is hopeful that restrictions on sports participation will be lifted in time to get in a few games before the summer is over. (Montreal authorized the gradual return of supervised team sports beginning last week.)
The final decisions about when competitive play can resume will be left up to regional, national and international health organizations, governments and sports organizations. Despite the lack of consensus as to when sport will return, most organizations agree a step-by-step approach to restarting is the best way to get things back to normal. And while there’s no single playbook that works for all games, the Australian Institute of Sport (AIS) is one of the few large-scale multi-sport organizations to publish a guide on how sport will be reintroduced.
The AIS’S Framework for Rebooting Sport in a COVID-19 Environment is as good a picture as any of what athletes can expect. Stating that the guiding principle is to “ensure the safety of athletes and other personnel and the wider community,” three distinct phases of a safe return to play are highlighted.
Phase 1 starts with athletes training on their own or with one other teammate. Athletes will remain physically distant based on public health guidelines and focus on fitness and skill development. Interaction with personnel — coaches, for instance — will be limited, as will the use of shared equipment and facilities like showers and locker-rooms.
Acknowledging that they present less risk of transmitting viruses between athletes, coaches and other members of the team, outdoor and non-contact sports will be the first events moving to Phase 2. The gathering of athletes in groups of 10 or less and the sharing of equipment — for example, kicking or passing a ball — will be permitted, but athletes will still follow physical distancing rules, though incidental contact is expected. There will be no large-scale team meetings, retiring to the showers or lockerrooms together or the sharing of food, towels or water bottles.
Phase 3 will reintroduce full team practices and a return to competition, but it’s likely that access to locker-rooms, on-field practices and competitions will be on a need-only basis. Spectators will be limited in number and will maintain whatever physical distancing rules are mandated by public health authorities. Shaking hands after a game and other rituals that demand non-essential close contact with visiting teams are suspended.
By the time teams move to Phase 3, the hope is that team travel will be allowed, though the extent of competitive play will be affected by how far health authorities extend the boundaries of travel. For recreational leagues, travel may not seem important, but many clubs and leagues rely on tournaments filled with visiting teams to top off their bank accounts.
And competitive leagues at the developmental, elite, varsity and pro level have travel schedules built in to provide a level of competitive play not found on the home front. The need to isolate for up to two weeks when moving between countries would further complicate the ability for athletes to attend international competitions, the kind of which are necessary to test their skills against the best in the world.
And then there’s the importance of creating contingency plans based on what happens when a team member, coach, other non-playing team personnel or a member of an athlete’s family tests positive for COVID-19. If the whole team is forced to isolate for 14 days, along with the team they played the day before, what happens to the league schedule?
Like the AIS, most of Canada’s sport organizations have been busy setting up protocols covering areas like personal hygiene, physical distancing and regular health checks, but contingency plans based on team, league or regional outbreaks of COVID-19 will need to be instituted, and teams should realize that moving through the phases of any reopening framework may include hiccups and restarts.
Despite these hurdles, athletes of all ages and abilities can’t wait to get back to action. Sports offer unique physical, mental and social benefits that can’t be easily replaced. So despite compromises, changes in scope and experience and no clear consensus on when sports will find their new normal, athletes everywhere have their jerseys at the ready. Two researchers at the University of British Columbia’s School of Kinesiology are looking for Canadians aged 18 to 64 willing to participate in two separate studies examining the impact of exercise on mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Mark Beauchamp’s study is geared toward older adults, and Eli Puterman is looking at the impact of yoga and/or high-intensity interval training on the well-being of all adults.
Shaking hands after a game and other rituals that demand non-essential close contact with visiting teams are suspended.