Covid-19 has hung over these Olympics for over a year and we’ve all prepared ourselves for the Games being marred by a lack of crowds, positive tests and call-offs.
But the news that the British shooter Amber Hill has had to stay at home was pretty powerful all the same.
I’ve had to miss big events through injury and not qualifying but I think this has to be the worst way imaginable to have your Olympic dream shattered.
Amber would have had a real chance of gold at Tokyo and, although she tested positive for coronavirus, she’s got no symptoms.
Effectively, she’ll be in peak condition to compete.
That will be an incredibly hard for her to get her head around.
She’ll need a good support team around her but at least she’s young enough to have more Olympics to strive for and if (let’s hope when) she achieves her goal it will be all the more special because of the pain of 2021.
I’m intrigued to see what these Games are going to be like.
Crowds or no crowds it’s still two weeks of wall to wall sport on terrestrial TV. I’ll be an Olympics addict as usual.
There are so many great stories waiting to be written by athletes like Helen Glover, Jade Jones and Laura Kenny who can add to their legend.
And new heroes will emerge who we haven’t even heard of yet.
Seeing Laura Muir get the Olympic medal she deserves is top of my wishlist.
She is in the form of her life and, at 28, she will probably never have a better chance.
I’ll probably make you jealous when I say that I was back in for training at the national curling centre this week.
Having ice under your feet when it’s been so hot outside has been no bad thing!
We’ve had a good break and the hard work starts to get ready for a new season.
The big ones in the curling calendar are the European Championships in November and the Olympic qualifiers the month after.
I know that there are events pencilled in well before them but we all know by now to take one day at a time.
British Curling announces programme supported athletes for season 2021-22:
➡️https://t.co/LwbHqs2KBr
📸PPA / Graeme Hart#curling #RoadtoBeijing #MondayMotivaton pic.twitter.com/7owyJPBXxc— British Curling (@BritishCurling) July 12, 2021
British Curling have freshened things up for the women by choosing a squad of nine.
A team of four will be selected out of that before every event.
That should mean the competition will be intense and the coaches will get a chance to try out different combinations.
There will certainly be no complacency and I’m definitely up for the challenge.
It was great to have an Open championship to watch again.
But even though the sun shone and the galleries were back it still felt like there was something missing for me.
Maybe it was to do with the Covid call-offs or maybe it was no Tiger Woods.
Collin Morikawa was a deserved winner and is now one of a few young players who have got more than one major to their name.
But I don’t see anybody jumping out of the pack to dominate.
I think this is going to be known as an era when the big wins were spread around.
