The IOC had no option other than to postpone this year’s Olympics.
For all the reasons that have been spoken and written about, they have had to fall in line with every other sporting event that has been planned for the spring or summer and face up to the harsh realities of the coronavirus pandemic.
Although it has been on the cards for the last couple of weeks, though, from an athlete’s perspective the initial feeling will be deflation.
If you’re in with a chance of being selected for an Olympic Games, your whole life will have been geared around this summer for at least a couple of years.
To have that taken away will be like a balloon getting burst.
You might think: ‘It’s only a year’. But for a lot of athletes, that will make a huge difference.
Some won’t even get to Tokyo now because those extra months will mean they won’t qualify and others will still qualify but they won’t get a medal because they will be past their peak.
On the flip side of the coin, there will be athletes who we haven’t even heard of who will burst on to the scene over the next few months and be stars in 2021.
Swimming is the sport that springs to mind as the one that will be one of the most affected by the postponement.
The medallists get younger and younger with every Olympics and a year is such a long time for them.
At least the likes of British Swimming and British Athletics haven’t held their trials and named their teams.
Canoeing and sailing have done just that.
What do they do now? Keep the teams the same or start the process all over again?
There are pros and cons in doing both but I can remember that when 9/11 forced the Ryder Cup back a year, by the time it got played there were some players who were badly out of form.
From a Winter Olympian’s point of view, it now looks like there will only be a few months’ gap between the summer Games and ours.
That will have its own implications but it’s just one of those things.
What is for sure is that 2021 and 2022 are going to be huge years for sport.
There will be so many events crammed into a short space of time.
For those of us who love competing and watching sport, that’s something to keep us going through the long weeks and months ahead with nothing to do and see.
* We’re all really proud of our team-mate Vicky Wright.
Vicky is a nurse who, now that our season has been brought to a premature end, has gone back on to the NHS frontline to help out with the coronavirus pandemic.
She’d been keeping her hand in this season by working one day a week when we weren’t on the road.
It’s something she’s really passionate about and she’s stepped up her hours.
Sport gets put into perspective at times like these and Vicky and so many others in our NHS are an inspiration to the rest of us.
