In any other household, news that one of their younger ones had been selected to represent the country in an international meet abroad would have been met with an outpouring of joy. Ramachandra Panda though was feeling something else — dread.His daughter Rutaparna had been included in the women’s team for the Badminton Asia Team Championships in the Philippines. There was one issue though — a virus that had been infecting people by the tens of thousands in neighbouring China and had just caused its first fatality in the Philippines. Naturally, the first thing that crossed Ramachandra’s mind was the risk of his daughter being exposed to it.
“We were in Cuttack and she is in Hyderabad,” he says. “When we found out about this trip to the Philippines, I immediately called up (national coach) (Pullela) Gopichand sir to discuss. We can’t let her go there with what is going on. That is a risk nobody should take.”On Friday, after days of speculation, the news finally started filtering in. The entire women’s contingent would skip the meet in the Philippines. Only the men would be participating.
Rutaparna’s Philippines trip is far from the only sporting event that 2019-nCov, popularly known as the novel coronavirus, has affected. It may be the least serious consequence of an epidemic that has, by now, infected more than 35,000 people worldwide but the coronavirus outbreak has thrown the world sporting calendar into turmoil like few other things in recent memory have. Dozens of events have already been rescheduled or cancelled and even more seem certain to follow suit.
The string of cancellations, much like the virus itself, has stopped limiting itself to China and started spreading to other countries. Kazhakstan recently cancelled a Fed Cup tennis leg for fear of athletes from affected countries participating. While the Formula One race in China in April has all but been cancelled, the organisers are casting worried glances at the one, two weeks before, in nearby Vietnam. There were doubts over the Asian Wrestling Championships that India is supposed to host in February due to big presence of Chinese wrestlers. Paranoia is everywhere.
Of course, this is not without precedent. In 2001, when the SARs epidemic broke out in China, FIFA made the decision to shift the Women’s World Cup from the country and hold it in the USA. The Ebola outbreak in 2015 saw Morocco refuse to host the African Cup of Nations out of fear that players from affected countries will enter their borders and bring the disease with them. The same year, the World University Games in South Korea saw reduced participation thanks to the MERs outbreak that was gripping the country.
But 2020 is different, and not just because the coronavirus is proving to be a whole lot harder to contain. In less than six months, Japan is supposed to be hosting the biggest event on the sporting calendar. Organisers of the Tokyo Olympics are looking at the havoc that’s being wreaked elsewhere and nervously wiping their foreheads. And for a group of Indian athletes, this means disruption and distraction, as they prepare for the biggest event of their lives.
Coping with the dread
Rutaparna’s was not the only family whose mind instantly wandered to the coronavirus when they hear the Philippines. HS Prannoy, who will travel to the country with the men’s contingent, says his folks weren’t too happy about it either. “They’re very, very concerned. They wanted me to withdraw from it,” he says.But unlike the women’s team, there’s a lot more at stake for Prannoy and the other male shuttlers at the tournament. Some of them are in the running to make the cut for the Tokyo Olympics and, as things stand, it’s a race they’re not doing too well in. The points at stake at the championships might end up proving the difference between whether they go to Japan or not.
“There were no points as such for them (the women’s team) to gain from such a tournament. It was not worth taking a risk,” says Prannoy. “But for the men’s team, I think, half of them are in the running for the Olympics. They’re in a place where things can get better by getting those points that are at stake.”
That was the main motivation when the men’s singles players took a collective decision to travel. But try as they may to banish it, there will always be a dark undercurrent of fear in their minds, an unnecessary distraction at a time when all they should be seeing is Tokyo. “It is there (on the back of my mind), I think,” says Prannoy. “Obviously, it’s not such a great time to travel around. But with the Olympic qualification on the sidelines, it’s kind of confusing, whether to play or pull out. Collectively, the men’s singles players have decided that we will play. We will take all the precautions while travelling and we are hoping that things are not going to be bad.
“But it’s spreading from person to person. There are a number of sporting events happening over the next few months, a lot of crucial tournament which might prove to be the cut-off for the Olympics. The biggest fear would be the travel from one place to another, because there are a lot of people who you’re going to be in a flight with. That’s one thing you are going to be very, very careful about.”
Rearranging schedules
Prannoy & Co at least had a choice — it was up to them whether they wanted to go and where they wanted to go. For others, it’s a decision that has already been made for them. On Friday, news broke that the Indian women’s hockey team had cancelled their tour to China. They had been supposed to travel there as part of their preparation for Tokyo from March 14 to 25. The coronavirus outbreak has jettisoned that plan.The problem now is that the team runs the risk of being short on preparation.
Finding a last-minute replacement is not the easiest task, because most of the other top teams are participating in the Hockey Women’s Pro League, a tournament that India chose to skip. As of now, they have only one more tournament before the Olympics — the Asian Champions Trophy in June.The situation is slightly better for the boxers, who do have a tournament to go to. Their Olympic qualifiers were supposed to be held in Wuhan — the epicentre of the outbreak, in early February. With that shifted to Amman, Jordan in March, the boxers still face the prospect of having to re-plan training routines. “As a boxer, you’re anticipating the match and you’re a little tense,” says women’s chief coach Ali Qamar. “So when the bout gets postponed, you become even tenser. The more you wait, the tenser you get. It’s not an ideal situation but mentally, you have to adjust.”
Qamar, the first Indian boxer to win a Commonwealth Games gold in Manchester, has faced a similar situation before. In 2004, he was in Pakistan for Olympic qualifier. A bomb blast meant that his bus had to return back to the hotel and the event had to be rescheduled. “However this is different because I only had to wait for that day. Here we have one month,” he says.Qamar gave an insight into how the women’s team was handling the abrupt change in schedule. “Before they shifted it to Amman, the girls were a little scared about going to China,” he says. “Everyday, they used to hear news about China and how the virus was spreading.
Only after the venue shifted, they were relaxed. It’s not easy because you’re already in competitive mode. Your workout is light and you work more on your speed. After the event was shifted, we took a recreational break of 3-4 days, to get them out of that competition mode. After that, we started medium load training with three-and-a-half minute sparring sessions. Initially, we had to motivate the girls and explain things to them. They were hoping to get it over with. Then, they understood that they had one extra month to chisel out flaws. Now we are doing a lot of video analysis of their bout and their opponents’ as well.”
Preparing for unpreparedness
These stories of fear and frustration will strike a tone with athletes all over the world — a lot of them face having to travel to a place despite not really wanting to go there while others are put off by the cancellation of a trip that they had already mentally prepared for. That raises a question — how many of them, especially Indians, will arrive in Tokyo in July fatigued and worn out mentally when ideally, they should be fresh and raring to go?
“When you’re competing at the highest level, you need to be a hundred per cent mentally prepared, in the zone,” says Divya Jain, head of Department of Mental Health and Behavioural Sciences at Fortis Healthcare in New Delhi. “Anything that throws off the schedule — you now have a lot of events being postponed — impacts the mental preparedness of the person, because things aren’t going the way they had expected it to.
“At the same time, once they know what’s happening, it’s possible to prepare for it,” she adds. “I always tell them to focus on things that they can control and not to worry about the things they cannot. In this case, (they need to have) a very transparent communication with the medical bodies. But once you’ve decided to go ahead with it, then you focus on the things that you control.”