IOC BEING RECKLESS IN EUROPE The prospect of the Games taking place is looking remote

ON Wednesday, just a couple of hours before the WHO declared that the Covid-19 Coronavirus was a global pandemic, the International Olympic Committee’s Boxing Task Force (BTF) confirmed that the Americas Olympic qualifier in Buenos Aires later this month had been postponed, on the orders of the Argentinian government.

With much of Europe in the midst of an unprecedented public health crisis, the Argentinian authorities have restricted all types of international events as a precaution. All very understandable in the current climate, as the BTF accepted in their statement.

It wasn’t the first bump on the road to Tokyo for boxers because of Covid-19. The first qualifying event was supposed to take place last month, featuring the best amateur boxers from Asia and Oceania. The problem was that it was scheduled for Wuhan, the Chinese city where the virus originated. A decision was made weeks ago to re-locate to Jordan’s capital of Amman, where it wrapped up earlier this week.

However, as normal life grinds to a halt in most of Europe, the likes of Kellie Harrington, Kurt Walker and Aoife O’Rourke will enter a ring in London’s Copper Box Arena over the coming days to try and reach the Olympics.

With mass cancellations across every other sport, event organisers decided it was full steam ahead for the European qualifying tournament. It’s a decision that is almost impossible to fathom. There are few sports like boxing, where competitors are in such close proximity of each other for an intense period of time.

And there is no rush to discover who will get the 77 Olympic places on offer in London – the prospect of the Games taking place this summer grows more remote with each passing day of this crisis.

Tournament director John Timms insisted yesterday that there had been no withdrawals, apart from a number of officials who came from the worst-affected areas. And he praised many of the 43 competing nations for the way they handled the situation.

‘We’ve been blessed with some really sensible teams that travelled here who, when this story started to break and unfold, actually put plans in place to be in the UK a lot earlier,’ Timms said.

‘Many teams have been here for over two weeks in training camps and have been here well beyond the quarantine period. We’re in good shape in that respect.’

The Irish team’s pre-tournament training camp was in the Italian city of Assisi. Although it’s a fair bit from Lombardy and the North, the Ireland management made the decision to cut the camp short once the crisis started to unfold in Italy and they came home a few days earlier and completed camp back in Dublin.

Italy have sent a full team of eight male and five female fighters, but they have been based in a camp outside London since the start of the month. ‘They (the Italians) have been over here for a significant period of time.

‘They knew there might be issues, they wanted to keep their boxers safe. They were all from outside the original quarantine area so they wanted to get them here so they could prepare properly,’ Timms said.

Perhaps, it was good planning on the Italian team’s part. But one wonders why the IOC’s boxing task force are insisting that the show must go on.

Surely, they should have taken their lead from the Argentinian authorities and postponed the European event to a time when everyone feels safer and more secure.