RAONIC NO-GO FOR OLYMPICS
Canadian latest to pull out of Games
Milos Raonic, who could fall out of bed and immediately rip a 140-m.p.h. ace down the line, has decided to skip the Rio Olympics.
You may start with the puns about “service” to one’s country now. I’ll wait here.
Raonic, fresh off his first-ever Grand Slam final, with a Canadian-history-making loss to Andy Murray at Wimbledon, is playing the best tennis of his life and would have been among the medal contenders in Brazil. It’s the ‘playing his best tennis’ now that most likely explains his decision.
Having bounced back from an injury-riddled 2015 season to climb back to seventh in the world rankings, and with a realistic shot to crack the top five before this year is out, Raonic likely sees an August trip to South America and back as a potential spanner in the works of his ascendancy. Yes, as with all the highly-paid professionals who have taken a pass on Rio, Raonic specifically cited the Zika virus as a main reason for the move — “I am making this decision for a variety of concerns including the uncertainty around the Zika virus” — but as athlete after athlete says it, it sounds more and more like a convenient out.
Raonic is scheduled to play the Rogers Cup in Toronto in the last week of July, and the tennis competition in Rio runs from Aug. 6 to Aug. 14. Then the last big ATP event before the U.S. Open takes place in Cincinnati from Aug. 14-21. Then the last Grand Slam of the season begins on Aug. 29. It’s evident that the ideal schedule, depending on how much one values a shot at an Olympic medal, is to take the first two weeks of August off and then return for the U.S. Open push. Cramming all the travel to Brazil in there — an elite tennis player wouldn’t fly coach, but it is taking this correspondent almost an entire day, the whole 24 hours, each way to make the trip — can’t be all that appealing for someone who has major career advancement still on his mind. And, give Raonic this: he spent most of last season as a walking health concern, missing the French Open, losing in the first week at Wimbledon and the U.S. Open, and skipping the Davis Cup. The guy probably could use some time to rest up.
But it is also apparent that, for an organization that has in recent memory mostly made headlines for decisions born of arrogance or avarice, the International Olympic Committee’s reasonably noble attempt at sharing its biggest stage with the developing world has not been embraced by some of its wealthiest would-be Olympians.
Would the list of reluctant pros be nearly as long if the Games were in Madrid or San Francisco?
The IOC, flush with Olympic pride, must have figured that athletes the world over would flock to wherever the Games were held, provided they were not on the moon. And that has largely been the case. But make it just inconvenient enough, and certain pros have decided that they would rather focus on their day jobs. An Olympic medal would be nice, but only if it’s not too much trouble to pursue it. Add in the uncertainty about various mosquito-borne illnesses — I’ve been skeptical here about Zika fears, but fully admit that there is a non-zero risk of contracting something — and athletes are able to pin their decision on a medical concern that can’t be disproven. (Though it would be nice if, just once, someone would say that they never really had the Olympics as a goal and so this wasn’t that tough a decision.)
Until now, Canada has been spared the fretting that has gone on in other nations as their big stars took a pass.
One of the side- effects of the men’s basketball team’s inability to qualify for Rio is we didn’t get the chance to find out how many NBA stars would have declined the chance to play for Canada in Brazil.
And so, Raonic moves to the top of the bummer list. He may yet be joined by Eugenie Bouchard, who like him had a pile of injuries last season but has her career back on track in 2016. Would it surprise anyone if she, too, gave Rio a pass?
But Bouchard might sincerely feel that she wants an Olympic medal. Who could blame her for that, either?
This is what’s so goofy about the wealthy professionals who are weighing whether to go to the Summer Games. This is an event that thousands of athletes train for years to try to reach, the very pinnacle of their sport. Every Olympic cycle, there are crushing tales of defeat as someone misses out on their final chance at competing in a Games. And then you have those who have already earned spots, who have their chance to be Olympians just sitting there and waiting for them, and they give it a good mulling and say, on second thought, no thanks.
I find it hard to rip them for this. The Olympics aren’t the biggest contest in their chosen sport. The problem isn’t with the pro athletes saying no, it’s with the Olympics for asking.