The month of April has been bad for so many of India’s Olympic hopefuls and ones who have already punched their tickets. With Covid-19 ravaging across India, the athletes, just like hundreds of thousands of compatriots from other fields, have suffered big losses. Some of them have lost their parents. Others found out they cannot travel to Olympic qualifiers, rendering their struggle across the last five years almost meaningless. A few have tested positive for the virus, thus putting a halt on their training sessions. It’s this class of athletes that stands to lose out a lot between now and the Olympics, purely from a competitive perspective.
With less than three months to go for the Olympics, a major chunk of the women’s hockey team, athletes like Avinash Sable (3,000m steeplechase), a bunch of boxers and a few others were or have been pushed into isolation at a time when they will have just begun firming up plans to attack the business end of preparation before they leave for Tokyo. Qualifying for the Games is one thing. But to actually be competitive in Japan, there can be no let up. Every waking hour is usually spent thinking about the Games, and training and planning for it. But for the dozen or so athletes who have been laid low by the virus, all of that will have to be put in the backburner. Forget training trips to Europe and exposure events to the US, for the time being all of them will be confined to the four walls of their bedroom.
Something that is absolutely unhealthy for their minds as well as their bodies for a number of reasons. They lose that edge, the muscles could become weak and it takes months to build whatever they lost within a week. This is even before you get into the actual health aspect. Their heart rates need to be constantly monitored and some of them could need dedicated training programmes after Covid to help them recover. Even then, some develop Covid-related complexities. Even if you are not positive, for a sportsperson, losing one day ahead of an event like the Olympics is lethal. Your preparation will be pushed back by a month. And that lingering doubt behind your back would start haunting you.
