The outbreak of the coronavirus has disrupted China’s preparations for the Tokyo Olympics, barring athletes from overseas-based competitions and forcing sports authorities into makeshift arrangements five months before the Games.
At home, many of China’s Olympic hopefuls are confined to closed training bases, unable to venture abroad due to entry restrictions placed by countries to contain the virus that has killed more than 2,500 people in China.
Overseas, a slew of China’s national teams remains in hastily arranged training camps scattered across the globe, unable to return home for fear of being swept up in virus-related travel restrictions.
In a country that has long equated Olympic performance with national strength, the crisis has put sports authorities on a war footing as they scramble to prepare a competitive delegation for Tokyo.
“Under the strong leadership of the Party Central Committee and the State Council, we are confident of completing the dual tasks of ‘resisting epidemic and preparing for war,” the General Administration of Sports (GAS) said in a report posted on the Chinese Olympic Committee’s website.
The GAS, China’s sports ministry, has implemented emergency measures to protect the country’s home-based athletes, forbidding them from transferring between training facilities. The restrictions extend to coaches and support staff as well as ancillary workers such as cooks, cleaners and drug testers at national and provincial centres.
The country’s most decorated Olympic swimmer Sun Yang is confined to his home-town pool at the Zhejiang College of Sports in Hangzhou, in eastern China, while national teammates train in Beijing.
Sun’s participation in Tokyo is already hanging in the balance, with the Court of Arbitration for Sport yet to make a decision in a doping case brought against the swimmer by the World Anti-Doping Agency last year.
“This is a painstaking process, and it might be harder than preparing for the Asian Games or World Championships, but I always want to prove myself,” Sun told state broadcaster CGTN this month.
