Canada won't send a team to the Olympics as scheduled; USATF calling for postponement of '20 Olympics...
Within the last hour, the Canadian Olympic Committee and Canadian Paralympic Committee announced that they will not send a team to the Olympic and Paralympic Games in the summer of 2020.
In the United States, USA Track & Field and USA Swimming, two of the national governing bodies that brought the largest medal hauls at the Rio Olympics four years ago, have come out with statements from their chief executive officers asking the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee to push the International Olympic Committee and the Tokyo 2020 Organizing Committee to postpone the Olympics.
World Athletics is also willing to talk to the IOC about postponing the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
The Olympic committees of Brazil, and Serbia & Croatia are also calling for a postponement of the Tokyo Olympics.
Here's the reality: The majority of elite athletes training for an opportunity to compete in the Olympics use either public places or university facilities to train. While it might be easy for a distance runner to hone their craft on the roads, they still need to have access to physiotherapists, a gym to lift weights and do strength training, nutritionists to get dietary advice, a 400-meter track to do race-specific training, and doctors to address injury concerns.
While you're thinking about the lack of access that elite athletes have to proper training, think about this--is it possible that certain athletes may use this time of uncertainty to game the system, as USA Weightlifting CEO Phil Andrews suggested in a tweet:
One big fear for me - dopers taking advantage. I understand the dilemma facing anti doping agencies, and the almost impossible social distancing. However, it cannot be open season for the cheats. https://t.co/EUAwSUsCEM— Phil Andrews (@PhilAndrewsUSA) March 19, 2020
Meanwhile, the position that the International Olympic Committee is taking is that, "Together with all the stakeholders, we have started detailed discussions today to complete our assessment of the rapid development of the worldwide health situation and its impact on the Olympic Games, including a scenario of postponement. We are working very hard, and we are confident that we will have finalised these discussions within the next four weeks." (bold faced for emphasis)
Assuming that the Olympics are postponed, the next question is where on the calendar to put it? Summer of 2021?
If the Olympics were to be rescheduled for 2021, the World Athletics Outdoor Track & Field Championships in Eugene at Historic Hayward Field would potentially take a hit. Ditto for the 2021 world swimming championships in Fukuoka (though it might not be as big of a hit with the Olympics in Tokyo).
In both swimming and track, the question is if you hold both the Olympics and world championships in 2021, will one event be watered down, or will athletes have to pick one or the other (keeping in mind that the Olympics doesn't give prize money, though the athlete potentially can earn bonuses from their sponsors for Olympic medals)?
I believe that swimming and track would benefit from having the Olympics pushed to 2022, but understand that it would be a scheduling nightmare for other major international sporting events in 2022.
Here's some links to get more perspective on this:
Rich Perelman's column on his web site. Rich, who is a friend of mine, was a former track manager at UCLA & was on the media relations staff at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles;
Former Los Angeles Times columnist Alan Abrahamson states that the IOC needs to send a better message while it works towards a plan B.
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