The Tokyo Olympics were arguably the biggest sporting victim of the coronavirus pandemic, postponed in March in an unprecedented movement when a third of the world sank into COVID-19-related blockades.
More than 11,000 elite athletes from 33 other sports were expected to participate in the games, most of them the pinnacle of sporting success.
A soft Olympic Games are now planned for two weeks from July 23, 2021, with some changes to the pandemic. The Paralympic Games will go on.
The Ariake Arena, where gymnastics, lighting and even athletes preparing for the Olympic and Paralympic Games will be held late on July 23, 2021 [Eugene Hoshiko / AP Photo] Even if the vaccines are despite everything deployed, there you are still not a hundred% sure that the occasion will be positioned even in 2021.
Al Jazeera spoke to three athletes from the Asia-Pacific region to find out how they were affected by the postponement.
Kelsey Ann Barber, Australian world javelin champion [Photo courtesy of Kelsey-Lee Barber] Everyone should know what the women’s javelin world champion is like.
“This is what they ask me the most,” Kelsey-Lee Barber said, laughing after Al Jazeera asked the same question.
“Javelin is an event,” he admitted, “especially in a country like Australia, where team sports are at the heart of concerns. “
Born in South Africa, Barber moved to Australia as a child. In high school, she presented the record, but her coach encouraged her to move on to other boxing occasions such as weight throwing and javelin.
It was when Barber won the javelin launch opportunity at the 2008 Pacific School Games that he learned the game for her.
“This is the occasion that will take me to the Olympics,” he recalls thinking, “that’s what I’m going to do with my life. “
Her instincts were correct: Barber, 29, is not only now the world champion, won gold in Doha in 2019, but also has the 12th longest javelin throw in history. It introduced 67. 70 m (222 ft) to Lucerne last year.
Barber is preparing for the Olympics right now and fortunately has been as affected by COVID-19 blockades as other athletes; after all, athletics is primarily an individual event.
“We had to move off site at first and train in our local garages and parks,” Barber said. “When COVID was announced as a pandemic, we thought [the Olympic Committee] would do everything it could to achieve it. “
Athletics occasions are scheduled to take place at Tokyo National Stadium, which will also host the Opening and Closing Ceremonies [File: Kimimasa Mayama / EPA] Last March, several countries, including Australia and Canada, officially withdrew their groups from the Tokyo Games. , posing fitness problems.
“When things intensify as temporarily as they did, I think that’s when I realize tokyo might not go through this year,” Barber says.
Although she is disappointed that she cannot compete this year, Barber says she thinks it’s the right thing to do.
“It gave me another chance this year,” he says. I’ve been able to focus on caring about my body this year, and that’s a great credit for the future. “
“I potentially dedicate a few more years to my career because of the paintings I’ve done this year. “
“This year also gave me the opportunity to just be me,” Barber added with a smile. “I’ve been back to studying hard, but for the first time in a long time, athletics didn’t have to be number one. Priority. “
Farah Ann Abdul Hadi, the first Malay woman to qualify to compete in gymnastics at the Olympics [Photo courtesy of Farah Ann Abdul Hadi] Malay gymnast Farah Ann Abdul Hadi is expected to spend July competing under the roof of the 12,000-seat Ariake Gymnastics Center in Tokyo, the first Malay woman to qualify for the competition.
Instead, the 26-year-old worked on her routines at Malaysia’s national sports complex in the southern suburbs of Kuala Lumpur, spending hours in the gym and physiotherapy and sharing updates with her 340,000 Instagram followers.
Looking back, Farah said that even though he was “a little upset” as discussions revolved around the cancellation of the Olympic Games, the delay was perhaps a blessing disguised, allowing his body to fully recover after consecutive competitions in 2019 and multiple injuring his career abroad.
“I don’t exercise in pain anymore,” he told Al Jazeera in a video call from Bukit Jalil. “Since I am already a senior gymnast, I am 26 years old and obviously my body is no longer 16 years old. quality rather than quantity. Improve skills and make sure my framework is healthy by 2021. »
Farah began doing gymnastics at the age of three, attending categories along with her older sister. “My parents are athletic and looking for their children to play sports as well,” she said, explaining how she “fell in love” with gymnastics. “I’m also an overactive child,” she says with a smile.
He began competing for his condition at the age of six and his education with the national team two years later. Its first foreign festival was held in 2010.
Artistic gymnastics is of agility, flexibility and strength and has been a component of the Summer Games since they were held in Amsterdam in 1928.
Women compete in 4 disciplines: asymmetric bars, beam, jump and earth, in a game that has long been ruled in the United States, Russia and China. So far, Malaysia has had more good fortune in badminton, diving and cycling.
Farah loves the floor.
“I love expressing myself and performing for the public and here I can also show my strength and my art,” he said.
She has a “story” with the beam, unfortunately it says of the wooden apparatus 10 cm wide (4 inches) and five meters (16. 4 feet) long, which is 1. 25 meters (4. 1 feet) from the ground. “I like the beam, ” but I don’t like it in return. “
It was a beam error that charged the gymnast a spot at the Rio Games for the slightest of the margins. ItArray said, a “devastating” blow.
He earned his place in Tokyo by qualifying for the World Championships in Stuttgart in October 2019. At the festival early in the morning, Farah endured an agonizing wait until the end of the afternoon before knowing for sure that he had qualified. “Tokyo, here we are!” sent a message to his circle of relatives in Malaysia.
When Farah started in the sport, she was encouraged through Nastia Liukin who became olympic champion of the festival – excelting in all 4 disciplines – in 2008. She is now Simone Biles, the top-decorated female athlete at the Olympics, who won four gold medals in Rio and enchanted a generation of young women.
This year, toy manufacturer Mattel created a one-of-a-kind Barbie Farah, a component of a task to honor inspiring people around the world.
Farah hopes that by competing in Tokyo, he can show the Malays that nothing is impossible.
“It’s essentially having a purpose and achieving that dream you’ve had since you were 8 years old: to go there with the Malaysian flag on your shoulder,” he said. “I am very proud to be a female gymnast, to be my country and to show young women that you can have a career in the game and that you can be whoever you want. “
Olympic diver Annabelle Smith [Photo courtesy of Annabelle Smith] Australian diver Annabelle Smith “pretty devastated” when she discovered that the matches had been postponed due to COVID-19.
“When you’ve been running on something for four years or your whole career, being ripped off from you at the last minute is pretty disappointing,” the 27-year-old told Al Jazeera.
Smith has been diving for 15 years and competed at the London and Rio Olympics, a bronze medal in Rio.
As such, she feels “grateful” to have had two Olympic reports already and has spent a lot of time reconfiguring it and talking to her psychologist and sports coach in preparation for Tokyo 2021 and now she feels “invigorated”.
She says some of her Olympic teammates found it more difficult, noting that “people are making plans for their careers around the Olympics. “
Smith also knows that some athletes have been forced to retire because they had other plans for 2021, such as starting a family, while others have “aged” their game or faced a greater threat of injury.
Being a Melbourne resident athlete presented more difficulties for the padlock, one of the longest and strictest in the world.
“I had to work out in my living room,” she says.
However, you now have the ability to be back at educational facilities, while making sure they remain for COVID-19.
“During our gym sessions, we want to thoroughly blank the apparatus and use our initiative to make sure everything is safe. “
Mai Yasuda dives from the 10-meter (32-foot) platform into the opening rite of tokyo Aquatic Center, it is expected to host artistic swimming, diving and swimming events at the Olympic and Paralympic Games [File: Issei Kato / Reuters] However, with COVID-19 far from over, Annabelle says that while training and preparing as if the games were as planned, she will “probably cry” if postponed again.
“I think it will be a very positive thing for the world to launch the Olympic Games and that other people can watch them on TV and celebrate anything after going through all those COVID challenges. I’m glad you brought everyone together. “
With Kate Walton in Canberra, Kate Mayberry in Kuala Lumpur and Ali MC in Melbourne.