The insidethegames.biz Magazine Summer Edition 2020 by Dunsar Media Company Limited

The insidethegames.biz Magazine The worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leading source of independent news and information about the Olympic Movement.

Summer Edition 2020

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IN MEMORIAM insidethegames remembers some of the sportsmen and women and officials who have died from COVID-19

Muhammad Afzal (Pakistan) April 21, 81. Wrestling. Competed at Tokyo 1964

Magomed Aliomarov (Russia) May 13, 67. Head coach of the Russian national women’s wrestling team

Paco Aritmendi (Spain) April 12, 81. Athletics. Competed at Tokyo 1964

Bob Beck (USA) April 2, 83. Modern pentathlon. Won two bronze medals at Rome 1960

Goyo Benito (Spain) April 2, 73. Football. Competed at Mexico City 1968

Roger Chappot (Switzerland) April 7, 79. Ice hockey. Competed at Innsbruck 1964

Sam Clayton Jr (Jamaica) March 31, 58. Bobsleigh. Member of the original “Cool Runnings” Jamaican bobsleigh team

Eric Denis (Belgium) April 7, 52. Hockey umpire. Officiated at Sydney 2000

Ken Farnum (Jamaica/Barbados) April 4, 89. Cycling. Competed at Helsinki 1952

François Garcia Garcia (Andorra) May 9, 79. Vice-President of the Andorra Olympic Committee

Pearson Jordan (Barbados) March 28, 69. Athletics. Competed at Montreal 1976

Azam Khan (Pakistan) March 29, 93. Squash. Four-time British Open winner

Hans-Viggo Knudsen (Denmark) March 19, 75. Canoeing. Competed at Tokyo 1964 and Mexico City 1968

Francesco La Rosa (Italy) April 8, 93. Football. Competed at Helsinki 1952

Marianne Lundquist (Sweden) April 10, 88. Swimming. Competed at London 1948 and Helsinki 1952

Francesco Perrone (Italy) April 27, 89. Athletics. Competed at Rome 1960

Roberto Outeiriño Hernanz (Spain) April 18, 85. Athletics. Ex-treasurer International University Sports Federation

Adlin Mair-Clarke (Jamaica) April 6, 78, Athletics. Competed at Tokyo 1964 and Mexico City 1968

Mohammed Yaseen Mohammed (Iraq) Lukman Niode (Indonesia) June 24, 57. Weightlifting April 17, 56. Swimming. Competed at Moscow 1980 Competed at Los Angeles 1984 and Los Angeles 1984

Ahmed Radhi (Iraq) June 21, 56. Football. Competed at Seoul 1988

Gottfried Schodl (Austria) April 14, 95. Weightlifting. Former President of the International Weightlifting Federation

Jacques Reymond (Switzerland) May 6, 69. Alpine skiing. Former head coach of Swiss Skiing team

Donato Sabia (Italy) April 7, 56. Athletics, Competed at Los Angeles 1984 and Seoul 1988

Matsushita Saburo (Japan) April 19, 84. Judo. Former Japanese Olympic Committee Executive member

Fernando Sandoval (Brazil) May 1, 77. Water polo. Competed at Mexico City 1968

Marcel Venot (France) April 30, 82. Canoeing. Ex- International Canoe Federation vice-president

Peter Whiteside (Great Britain) April 14, 67. Modern pentathlon. Competed at Moscow 1980

Carmen Williamson (USA) April 8, 94. Boxing referee. Officiated at Los Angeles 1984

Daniel Yuste (Spain) March 26, 75. Cycling, Competed at Mexico City 1968

Rest in peace

Contents

Published: July 2020 by Dunsar Media Company Limited Editor: Duncan Mackay Magazine Editor: Dan Palmer Managing Director: Sarah Bowron Design: Elliot Willis Willis Design Associates Pictures: Getty Images Staff headshots: Karen Kodish Print: www.csfprint.com Dunsar Media Company Limited Office Number 5 @ 8/9 Stratford Arcade, 75 High Street, Stony Stratford, Milton Keynes, MK11 1AY. Great Britain +44 1908 563300 contact@insidethegames.biz www.insidethegames.biz No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in any retrieval system of any nature without prior written permission of the publisher.

Introduction

Duncan Mackay

Covidâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cost to sport David Owen

Repairing the puzzle Mike Rowbottom

Filling the void

Michael Houston

Looking after the mind Nancy Gillen

Do try this at home Liam Morgan

Fixing a broken sport Brian Oliver

The 40-year curse Philip Barker

A disaster and a triumph Mike Rowbottom

Data is published in good faith and is the best information possessed by Dunsar Media Company Limited at the stated date of publication. The publisher cannot accept any liability for errors or omissions, however caused. Errors brought to the attention of the publisher and verified to the satisfaction of the publisher will be corrected in future editions, if any. ÂŠ and Database Right 2020 Dunsar Media Company Limited All rights reserved.

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STAY

SAFE The Covid-19 outbreak has left the sporting event industry, together with the rest of the world, in lockdown. It is a very challenging time for our industry as a whole and for you as our friends and international partners. We look forward to collaborating with you on the other side. Till then, stay safe!

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DUNCAN MACKAY EDITOR, INSIDETHEGAMES

t was January 11 when insidethegames published its first story which mentioned the word “coronavirus”. The article reported how the International Olympic Committee was “monitoring” the impact of a “bout of pneumonia” in China, which was threatening the following month’s Asia and Oceania boxing qualifier for Tokyo 2020. January was only a few months ago but, given what has happened since, it feels like it was another lifetime. Of course, the boxing qualifier in Wuhan did not take place and sporting event after sporting event has been postponed or cancelled since, a devastating domino effect caused by the rapid spread of COVID-19. It is true that the sporting landscape can change quickly in a short period of time, but at the start of the year few could have predicted the position we are now in and that the situation would have altered so dramatically. We have the unprecedented scenario of an Olympic and Paralympic Games being postponed by a year, with Tokyo 2020 now scheduled to take place in 2021. In the last edition of The insidethegames.biz Magazine, we covered issues facing organisers such as the searing Japanese heat and the problems with boxing’s governance. These now seem like small concerns when compared to the huge logistical challenge of hosting Games a year later than planned. It must be difficult to know where to start

with this mammoth task of re-organisation, which is taking place with no guarantees on the 2021 Games going ahead. With the coronavirus still prevalent at the time of writing, and no sign of an effective vaccine, could a decision to cancel Tokyo 2020 entirely eventually be made? If the Games do go ahead, it seems clear they will be “slimmed down” and feel different to what we are used to. Who knows where we will be in six months’ time – the sporting landscape changes quickly. IOC President Thomas Bach described the re-arranging of Tokyo 2020 as a “huge jigsaw puzzle and every piece has to fit”. “If you take out one piece, the whole puzzle is destroyed,” the German added. In this magazine, chief feature writer Mike Rowbottom examines the mind-boggling job now facing Tokyo 2020 organisers, and outlines what the main stumbling blocks will be. Among the most worried by the current situation will be sport’s accountants, with the Olympic Movement and beyond braced for a financial hit. Chief columnist David Owen has run the numbers and assesses COVID-19’s cost to sport. For the athletes, the upheaval caused to the sporting calendar and their normal way of life presents its own challenges. Years of work goes into preparing for an Olympic Games, with the abrupt postponement and uncertainties about the future leading to fears for the mental health of sportsmen and women. Nancy Gillen assesses the great strain which can be felt by star performers all over the world, and asks what can be done to solve the problem. The Olympic Movement of course is no stranger to controversy and Tokyo 2020 is not the first Games to have its plans ripped up.

In 1940, Tokyo was also due to play host but these Olympics were doomed never to take place because of war. Forty years later, the 1980 Olympic Games in Moscow were held under a political cloud and were heavily boycotted. Philip Barker goes back in time to explore these two Games and wonders if the Olympic Movement is suffering from a 40-year curse. Not all of sport’s current problems are related to the virus, with weightlifting in particular suffering from a tumultuous year. The tales of doping and corruption which have emerged have left the sport with its own re-building job, and it will be a long road ahead. Brian Oliver finds out that there is hope in even the bleakest situations, with a level playing field for all and a new start for weightlifting now the goal. This magazine is not all doom and gloom, however. Chief senior reporter Liam Morgan looks into how sports have adapted to the enforced period of lockdown by holding events in athletes’ homes, which have successfully captured the imagination. Michael Houston has delved into the way sport has kept people’s spirits up during the crisis – from the distribution of masks and sanitiser to the financial schemes set-up by governing bodies to give athletes a helping hand. When possible, insidethegames will be returning to the road to cover all of the sports stories which matter the most. I hope you enjoy the magazine and we look forward to seeing you all again soon. Duncan Mackay Editor

We hope to see you again soon

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COVID’s Co$t To $port The coronavirus pandemic caused a global shutdown of sport, and sent the industry’s money counters into panic. David Owen looks at the financial impact of COVID-19.

t has been 75 years since sport was confronted with disruption on a scale anything like that triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, the sector has grown into a vast global industry. If you include recreational sport in all its guises, the value of the market when coronavirus struck was probably in the vicinity of $500 billion a year. The spectator or professional branch of the sector accounted for rather less than half of this. According to David Dellea, head of professional services firm PwC’s sports business advisory, it is estimated that the professional sports industry would have generated slightly under $190 billion of revenue in 2020 if coronavirus had not emerged, or had no impact. How much of this base-line figure will now be lost? And what proportion of these

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lost 2020 revenues are gone for good, as opposed to being pushed into 2021 and beyond? The International Olympic Committee, for example, will still be hopeful that the vast majority of the income it would expect to earn from the Tokyo 2020 Games will still materialise, even if much of it comes through the door a year later than originally anticipated. Halfway through this fraught and rather humbling year, these questions remain impossible to answer with any degree of confidence, since developments on the ground continue to impact forecasts on an almost daily basis. Certain facts relating to the overall structure of the sector can, though, usefully be highlighted. For example, Alan Switzer of Deloitte’s Sports Business Group sees, broadly, recreational sport coming back earliest, then domestic professional sport and finally international sport. “It is hard to see how that would change,” he says. It is, moreover, fairly clear that, when it comes to professional sport, the revenue stream most at risk from social-distancing measures imposed by Governments to try to slow down the spread of the virus and buy time to develop a more effective treatment or vaccine, is gate receipts. It is also clear that if events are staged behind closed doors, the gate money they would normally have

generated is lost for good. According to Dellea, this income stream accounts for between 25 and 30 per cent of the professional sports industry’s overall revenues. So, we can say that if the pandemic obliged all professional sports fixtures to take place without spectators for a year, the cost to the industry, as far as this revenue stream is concerned, would be broadly $50 billion. But staging events in the absence of live spectators, while it might be a means of salvaging the vast majority of the broadcasting rights revenues that are so important to the big football leagues and indeed the IOC, puts a question mark over other revenue streams too. Sponsors, for example, it could be argued, would not get full value for their money and might therefore press for discounts. “I would estimate that about 30 per cent of sponsorship revenue is at risk for events taking place without live audiences,” Dellea says. Sponsorship accounts for about 35 to 40 per cent of the professional sports industry’s revenues. So that might add a further $20 billion or more to the permanent loss of revenue from staging a year’s worth of events in empty stadia. Even this might not be the whole story, since sales of merchandise might well also be affected.

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DAVID OWEN CHIEF COLUMNIST, INSIDETHEGAMES With football, the biggest piece in the global jigsaw, assessment of the full eventual impact of COVID-19 will be complicated by the fact that nearly all leading European clubs have financial year-ends in May or June, coinciding roughly with the traditional end of the season. While it appears currently that the 2019-2020 seasons of the four richest leagues will be concluded, a chunk of revenue that would normally have accrued to participating clubs during their 2019-2020 financial years looks almost certain to be shunted into 2020-2021. Thus, while the virus will cost football dear, and could even speed restructuring of the club game, it may not prevent 2020-2021 from emerging as something of a bumper year in revenue, if not profit, terms. In its latest Annual Review of Football Finance, Deloitte, the professional services firm, projects that aggregate revenue from the big five European leagues – the top divisions of England, Spain, Germany, Italy and France respectively – will fall

Tottenham Hotspur said its revenue loss may exceed £200 million for the period to June 2021. Photo: Getty Images

from €17 billion in 2018-2019 to €15.1 billion in 2019-2020, before jumping back to €18.1 billion in 2020-2021. With regard to the richest league of all, England’s Premier League, Deloitte expects COVID-

19-related disruption to cut aggregate revenues of the 20 clubs by approximately £1 billion. But it anticipates that a bit more than half of this lost revenue will be deferred until 2020-2021, rather than forfeited

Sport taking place behind closed doors will cause a huge loss of revenue. Photo: Getty Images

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altogether. Another forecast, by the London-based Premier League club Tottenham Hotspur, appeared to imply that clubs might lose up to 30 per cent of revenue. Spurs said that its estimated revenue loss “may exceed £200 million for the period to June 2021”. While there is no way of knowing the exact period of time that the club was referring to, if one assumes it to be the 16 months between March 2020 and June 2021, it appears to be suggesting that it might lose £200 million out of somewhere in the region of £670 million that it might once have been expecting, so fractionally under 30 per cent. Football leagues extend over as much as three-quarters of every year. They use sporting infrastructure built for the specific purpose of housing league matches year after year to

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Upcoming 3x3 Trick Shot Challenge

KEEPING PACE,

EVEN IN CHALLENGING TIMES. Global University Sports events during COVID-19 pandemic 8

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accommodate a fanbase which is relatively local. The situation with infrequentlystaged events, such as the Olympics and football’s World Cup, is rather different in a number of respects, particularly when they embrace multiple sports. For one thing, this single, often quadrennial, event is responsible for raising much of the income the event-owner would expect to have at its disposal over an extended period. The cash-flow implications of delaying, let alone cancelling, such an event, could be highly problematic – especially when, as is the case with both the IOC and football body FIFA, much of the income is earmarked ultimately for other bodies. Secondly, the Olympics is essentially a once-in-a-humanlifetime event for a host city. The required infrastructure is made available for the Games at a particular point in time. With the exception of temporary venues,

The International Hockey Federation has entered "complete savings mode". Photo: Getty Images

however, the vast majority of this infrastructure’s useful lifespan will be spent staging other events, many of which have nothing to do with sport, let alone the Olympics. Here, the difficulty lies with postponing the Games, rather than cancelling them. Many

Infrequently staged events such as the FIFA World Cup will face different financial challenges. Photo: Getty Images

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venues would already be contracted to host completely different events on the revised dates for the Games; the Olympic Village would normally have been in the process of conversion into private housing. The Olympics is, of course, an important enough event for such issues to be worked through and, in all probability, resolved, with the help of the relevant local authorities. But the process inevitably carries a cost. In May, the IOC estimated the cost – to itself – of the planned postponement of Tokyo 2020 at up to $650 million. The overall cost, assuming the revised dates are adhered to, is likely to be much higher. Thirdly, athletes and spectators normally flock to the Olympic Games and major World Championships from all over the world. Whereas national football leagues ought in theory to be able to reopen to spectators once the virus has been comprehensively suppressed in that particular

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country, it is hard to see how an event like the Olympics could take place in a normal, or quasi-normal, way unless it is suppressed more or less everywhere. Clearly, the more spectator numbers are reduced from initial estimates, the bigger the hit you expect to be sustained by gate receipts. And, again, if sponsors suspect that their brands are being exposed to fewer eyeballs than originally expected, they might start pushing for discounts on their fees. The IOC recorded $5.16 billion of revenue from broadcasting rights and The Olympic Programme worldwide sponsorship scheme over the last Olympic cycle, stretching from 2013 to 2016. It had been expected to generate at least $6.5 billion from these sources over the current cycle. Not all of this is in cash; a proportion of sponsorship payments takes the form of useful goods and services, everything from cars to beverages, so-called value-in-kind.

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By the halfway point of the present quadrennium, the amount of broadcast and TOP sponsorship revenue recognised by the IOC stood at $2.55 billion. This implies that something like $4 billion of IOC income is on the line as a consequence of the COVID-19 crisis, probably more once other revenue sources are taken into account.

Sporting sponsors could seek a refund on what they have already paid. Photo: Getty Images

Should Tokyo 2020 ultimately have to be cancelled, one assumes that the bulk of this $4 billion would not be forthcoming. It seems likely that TOP sponsors may have handed over another approximately $550 million during 2019. But in the absence of an end-product, I would think they would want at least some of that repaid. The IOC has Games cancellation insurance, but it is almost entirely unclear how big a payment it would expect if Tokyo 2020 had to be scrapped completely. My guess, but it is a guess, is that it would cover the IOC’s approximately $300 million a year of operating costs for a couple of years, but not the full price-tag of cancellation. Out-and-out loss of Tokyo 2020 would not, however, be a matter of life and death for the IOC, assuming that the Beijing 2022 Winter Games could proceed more or less as planned. While financial markets have been volatile in recent months, there seems no reason to think that the strong financial position outlined in the body’s 2018 accounts (the most recent we have to hand as I write) has been significantly compromised. At the end of that year, the IOC was stated to have total assets of $4.1 billion, cash and other financial assets of $3.7 billion against liabilities totalling $1.7 billion and a fund balance of $2.4 billion.

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Much of the revenue that the IOC takes in from any Olympic Games is, of course, passed on to other bodies in the sports and Olympic ecosystem. Some of these organisations depend on Lausanne for a seriously large chunk of their own income. The current one-year postponement of Tokyo 2020 is already confronting a few with cash-flow issues. The IOC paid Summer Olympic International Sports Federations $540 million post-Rio 2016, in recognition of the contribution of their sports to the Summer Olympic programme. They would have been expecting a similar amount post-Tokyo 2020. And they would originally have expected to receive a very big slice of it in about September 2020. Even in the best of circumstances, the revenue out of which the IOC would normally make these payments will not now arrive until a year later, in September 2021. And given the extra organisational costs the IOC is facing as a consequence of the Games’ postponement, there looks to be a good chance that the overall sum when it is paid out will be lower than the IFs would originally have pencilled in. Many of the IFs affected have considerable reserves of their own with which to tide themselves over until the post-Tokyo 2020 IOC payment does arrive. When the International Handball Federation recently published accounts for the first time as part

of what it calls a “new chapter of transparency”, they revealed, to some surprise, that the body had amassed financial assets amounting to well over CHF130 million as of the end of 2018. The IHF has accordingly told the IOC that it can get by without extra financial assistance. “Thanks to the IHF’s healthy financial situation, we answered the IOC, inviting them to dedicate the mentioned financial assistance to the IFs which are deeply affected financially by the COVID-19 pandemic and the postponement of the 2020 Olympic Games,” it told insidethegames. A number of IFs probably will request, in effect, an advance of part of their anticipated Tokyo 2020 payments, however. World Sailing confirmed in June that it had taken advantage of assistance offered by the IOC. According to President Kim Andersen, “there are a lot of uncertainties, which makes us very dependent on either getting some funding which we are sourcing ourselves, getting the Olympic money or support from the IOC”. The International Modern Pentathlon Union says it has been in discussions with the IOC about a possible advance “ever since the postponement of the Olympic Games”. It adds that advance payment “will certainly help with UIPM cashflow in the months of 2021 running up to the Olympic Games, although we are in a stable financial position for 2020”.

The IOC has cancellation insurance should Tokyo 2020 be called off entirely. Photo: Getty Images

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The International Handball Federation's reserves allowed it to turn down help from the IOC. Photo: Getty Images

According to general secretary Shiny Fang: “As a sport born and designed for the Olympic Games, frankly, modern pentathlon can’t stand without the Olympic Games, and we at UIPM are not ashamed of relying on Olympic revenue. However, it is our responsibility to think and prepare for all scenarios.” The International Hockey Federation has gone into “complete savings mode”, although chief executive Thierry Weil has indicated that the body would strive to make any IOC advance payment as small as possible, or perhaps to manage without one at all. World Athletics President Sebastian Coe has also acknowledged holding discussions with the IOC on the matter. “Like many Olympic sports,” he told the Financial Times, “we are very grateful but also reliant on the share of the IOC broadcast revenues. “We work in that four-year business cycle and not having those revenues in the year that we were planning means that we have to be very careful.” Figures recently emerged indicating that World Athletics made hefty deficits in both 2017 and 2018, but also that end-2018 reserves stood at $45.2 million. Among National Olympic Committees, the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee has been looking to trim up to 20 per cent from its budget. IOC accounts indicate that the USOPC received a total of www.facebook.com/insidethegames

$304.6 million from the IOC in 2017 and 2018. British Olympic Association chairman Sir Hugh Robertson told BBC Radio 5Live that the organisation had gone through a period of “pretty serious financial retrenchment” following postponement of the Tokyo Games. Senior management at the Australian Olympic Committee have taken voluntary pay cuts. AOC President, senior IOC member and Tokyo 2020 Coordination Commission

chairman John Coates has pledged that the IOC “will not stand by and allow any of our International Federations to collapse”. In May, the IOC approved an “aid package” of up to $150 million for the Olympic Movement, including IOC-recognised organisations, to “enable them to continue their sports, their activities and their support to their athletes”. COVID-19 is testing the present generation of sports leaders like nothing they have encountered in their careers to date. Getting on for six months after the shadow first emerged, the sense of uncertainty is still profoundly unsettling. Managers are faced with the very real possibility of something like 35 per cent of the sector’s revenues being lost, even if they do their jobs and get most decisions right. And sport has hitherto been a growth industry. Admittedly, the problem might – and one day probably will – disappear as abruptly as it materialised. But, when that day comes, a new question will need to be asked: has the enforced hiatus in normal sports activities accelerated the process of young people turning their backs on traditional sport? If the answer to that question turns out to be “yes”, the new age of crisis management in the sector may be only just beginning. That really is a scary thought for an industry in which above-par growth has long been the norm.

Tokyo 2020 Coordination Commission chairman John Coates has said the IOC will not allow IFs to collapse. Photo: Getty Images

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e l z z u p e h t Repairing The International Olympic Committee and Tokyo 2020 are facing the unprecedented task of rearranging a Games. Mike Rowbottom explores this monumental challenge and asks, where do you start?

ne of the reasons cited for not holding the Glastonbury music festival in 2012 was a very basic one. London 2012 organisers had already nabbed all the portaloos that could be had for their own visitors that summer. This audacious move by the London 2012 chief executive, Paul Deighton, was in no way an attempt to undermine live music events in the UK. It was simply one expression of the extraordinary range of mundane necessities vital for the successful staging of an Olympic and Paralympic Games. Planning for an Olympics is mind-boggling. Thatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s why there is a seven-year gap between the winning of a bid and the delivery of a Games.

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So, for the shell-shocked members of the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee, the question of how to accommodate to a Games now postponed to a starting date of July 23, 2021 because of COVID-19 has been uniquely challenging. The task force formed to deal with the daunting question of re-setting the Tokyo Games was called Here We Go. A misnomer, surely. It should have been Here We Go Againâ&#x20AC;Ś Soon after delivering the formal request for postponement to the International Olympic Committee on behalf of his own International Federation, World Athletics President Sebastian Coe, who was President of the Organising Committee for the London 2012 Games, told CNN: "If I had an hour to spare with you and you had the space

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to fill, I don't think I could even begin to get across the enormity of this project. "There is no project management that is more challenging in the life of any city, or any country, under normal circumstances than the delivery of the Games." In the wake of the decision to postpone, IOC President Thomas Bach expressed the challenge as a "huge jigsaw puzzle and every piece has to fit", warning that "sacrifices and compromises" would need to be made by all stakeholders to ensure the success of Tokyo 2020. "If you take out one piece, the whole puzzle is destroyed," he added. During a teleconference involving Coe and African and European media, I asked him what he regarded as the most pressing issues now facing the leaders of the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee. “There is a myriad of considerations to take on board,” he replied. “Whether it’s about mothballing venues, whether it’s about the sales of some of those venues – the anchor tenants that have been agreed, which good Organising Committees tend to have in place. “And the very nature of the Athletes’ Village, being put back into consumption, whether commercially or publicly. Those are all the things that they will be dealing with now, along with broadcasts, broadcast rights, sponsorships… “But there is one thing I hope people recognise, which is that by the time you get to the end of that seven-year journey your teams are running on empty. And that includes the President, right the way down through the organisation. “So I am hoping there is recognition that there is exhaustion suffused with massive disappointment that this decision had to be taken. “It was the right decision – nobody is questioning it – but if I was head of the Organising Committee in these sort of circumstances I would be wanting to take away some of the exhaustion on behalf of my team before they regathered for yet another year of delivery. “I think that would be uppermost in my concern at the moment – just managing the disappointment and the exhaustion, all coming together in what could be a perfect storm. www.facebook.com/insidethegames

“I’m sure the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee will be thinking about that. It’s just the sheer weight of effort that goes into getting to the point of being within 100 or so days before a Games.” Another highly experienced operator in the field of organising international multi-event championships concurred with Coe’s assertion that the human resources challenge would be significant for the Tokyo organisers. “You have a staff of between 9,000 to 10,000 people all focused on the Games,” he told insidethegames. “Most of them will already have arranged to move to another job after the Games are over. So how are you going to sort that out? Are they going to have to say to their prospective employers – ‘sorry, I can’t take up that job now?’ “Are you going to be looking at paying for a whole year’s extra salary for 10,000 people? “Then you have to look at the contractors. You could have 150,000 of them ready to do sport information, sport presentation, security, cleaning. They will all have been tied to a rate for this July and August. “You’ve got to hope you can call them all back in a year’s time. Can they all do that? And will they all work for the same agreed rate next year?

The Tokyo 2020 countdown clock has been re-set. Photo: Getty Images

“If you look at ticket sales – you’re probably looking at the sale of around seven to eight million. How can you be sure they can be valid for July next year? That is a long time for people to put their plans on hold. “Every Games has venue use agreements, where commercial venues guarantee they will be capable of holding events such as gymnastics, boxing, volleyball, taekwondo… “If you are expecting to transfer that usage to the same time the following year – you have no guarantee the venue will be free. It could be booked up with a concert or another event, at a commercial rate. “If you are a private owner you have no obligation to the Olympics. You might have agreed, through a love of your country, to make your venue available at a certain time at a certain rate.

Plans for the Tokyo 2020 Torch Relay were ripped up. Photo: Getty Images

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“Then you look at the situation with hotel rooms. These are very expensive in Tokyo anyway – you’re looking typically at $650 a night, three times what you might pay in London. That figure will have been agreed and frozen in advance of the Games. “But if you then say to hotel owners ‘sorry, it needs to be 2021’ there is nothing to stop them saying ‘all bets are off.’” Regarding availability, however, the owner of a leading sports travel firm with more than 30 years of experience of organising trips to the Olympic Games sounded an optimistic note. He told insidethegames that he had been assured by a member of the Tokyo Tourist Board at the World Travel Show in 2018 that Japan’s capital would have “more than enough” hotel rooms for the Games. “I think there is a good chance that 80 to 90 per cent of those rooms will be available again a year from now,” he said. “And I think, it being Japan, that if the Government requires other rooms to be freed up, they will be. “When the Games were held in Athens, or Rio, there was much less wriggle room. The Olympics usually require around 25,000 to 30,000 hotel rooms, and that is roughly the capacity of those two cities. “But Tokyo and London have a far greater capacity, around 120,000 rooms. “The strange thing about London 2012 was that some central London hotels were half empty. They had made the mistake of putting up their prices too high, hoping for a late surge of demand. “But most of the deals are done 15 months before the Games. And what happened in London was you had a doughnut effect, with people staying around the perimeter of the

Tokyo will be an Olympic and Paralympic city in 2021 instead of 2020. Photo: Getty Images

city in Travelodges which were close to tube lines or bus routes.” Laszlo Vajda is currently in Beijing where he has been working for the last two months as a senior expert preparing for the 2022 Winter Games. With a brief that includes Games services, the Olympic Village and international relations – the same one he had at the Beijing 2008 Summer Games – he is well versed in the numerous manifold details of organising the mega-event. It is fair to say that the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee has his sympathy and understanding right now.

Test events for the Games had already taken place before the postponement. Photo: Getty Images

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“I think it is going to be the procurement that is going to be very tricky,” Laszlo, who also worked on the organisation of the 2004 Athens Olympics and Paralympics, told insidethegames. “The Olympic Games involves a huge amount of relationships with suppliers of a huge amount of small but necessary items. “At the end of every Games the organisers arrange either to give things to charity or to hold an effective garage sale of items. “For instance, in the Olympic Village a huge amount of things have to be procured – bedding, beds, bedside tables, lamps and other furniture. And there will be a huge number of similar items going into 40-odd venues and the Media Villages. “Knowing the Japanese and the way they plan, and the detail they go into, I am quite certain that they would already have solid plans for asset disposal. “So for them the question will be – do we sell them again now and try to procure them a year later, or do we store them? In which case we need to find somewhere secure and suitable. “Another key area of complexity now

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The look and feel of Tokyo 2020 will stay the same, and it will keep its name and mascots. Photo: Getty Images

will involve the venues, which will all have had venue clothing – Games-related banners and decoration – manufactured in a bespoke way. “I don’t think Tokyo are changing the look of the clothing now that the postponement has happened – they will be retaining the feel and colours already established to evoke the Games, they will be using the same mascots. “But again, they might have started to manufacture them. And then the question will be how to preserve them, to store them. And if they have to change venues then the clothing will need to be changed and customised to fit the new ones. “So then they need to find potentially the same manufacturer to maintain consistency, who will be ready for the new demands. The timing of the production needs to be synchronised. “And then they somehow need to get rid of the redundant items. So I think the look of the Games would definitely provide a lot of questions where the postponement would make itself felt very strongly on the ground. “There may be other considerations involved in terms of the uniform. There will be a total of around 250,000 people needing uniform for the Games – volunteers, staff and other stakeholders. “In the space of the year, it may be that people who have already been fitted will need uniforms of a different size. I think they

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have a little bit of a funny obligation to stay fit and sporty so they don’t change size! “While food for the Athletes’ and Media Villages and other venues will probably not have been procured yet, there may be a number of temporary kitchens already installed in the venues which will now be redundant. “Typically this kind of equipment is leased – so again, organisers have to decide, do we leave it in place for a year, or store them all somewhere? Or return them and start again next year? It will be a matter for careful cost analysis.” Shortly after news of the postponement, Tokyo 2020 President Yoshirō Mori mentioned ticketing arrangements by announcing a series of measures now being put in place to facilitate the re-staging of the Games. “In principle we will work on measures to ensure that purchased tickets will be valid for the corresponding rescheduled events,” Mori said. “We will suspend plans to deliver tickets from May 2020 onwards. We will suspend the spring ticket sales programme that was scheduled from April 2020. We are currently considering how to handle the numbered ticket postcard lottery and will announce this in due course.” Mori added that the Games volunteers,

all of whom were confirmed at the start of March, were being asked to participate next year “on the basis that they will have the same roles and venues as currently allocated”. “As soon as the new dates and venues are confirmed, we will reconfirm the volunteers’ participation as quickly as possible,” he said. All 18 test events scheduled to take place from April were postponed, pending review, and consideration is also being given to how Torchbearers due to take part in the postponed Olympic Torch Relay can have priority next year. Mori also confirmed the Games would continue to be known as the Olympic and Paralympic Games Tokyo 2020, adding: “This will enable all official merchandise, Torches, emblems, mascot characters, et cetera, to be used going forward.” On the subject of procurement, Mori said this would be “minimised or suspended”, adding: “We will ask for suspension of the fulfilment of existing contracts, and when new plans for the Games have been confirmed, we will consult with the relevant business operators and implement all necessary changes.” According to The Nikkei, the Japanese business paper, organisers estimate it will cost an extra $2.7 billion, taking into account venue rentals, rebooking hotels and

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additional payments for staff and security guards. The paper added, however, that those costs could come down depending on the outcome of negotiations. That overall figure puzzled Michael Payne, who has been involved in Olympic marketing since the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics and served as the IOC marketing director from 1989 to 2004. Since then, he has brokered numerous key Olympic sponsorship deals from the other side of the fence. Payne’s take on the huge estimate of costs to shift the Games is that it “may also be setting-up for a negotiation with the Government for their contribution”. He added: “If you look at the financial structures, all the heavy lifting, all the capital infrastructure – they’ve already done that work. Everything is already built now. “The Organising Committee have finished all their big spending items – they have either already spent it, or, like the technology or food for the Athletes’ Village, it is not yet spent but already budgeted for. “All the ticketing systems and process – all that’s done. The ceremonies – that is all in the works. You are not going to go and spend it again. “So I’m not sure how you would suddenly get to billions.” Payne pointed towards a tendency that occurs during any Olympics where the budgeting is often employed to upgrade facilities for the general good that are not specifically Games-orientated. “You can end up with a mammoth Olympic budget which, if you really go and look at it, is a lot more than just for the 17 days,” he said. Addressing the most pressing issues now facing the Tokyo organisers, Payne said: “I would say the next three-to-four months are going to be particularly heavy lifting

The Tokyo Big Sight caused a headache for organisers. Photo: Getty Images

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The Athletes' Village was an immediate stumbling block after the postponement. Photo: Getty Images

because you have got to go and re-do all your venue agreements. “But, it being Japan, and the Government, it should be easier to manage than it might be in some other countries. “On the question of the venues, I think you can put it into three buckets. One is the Athletes’ Village. And as I understand it that is not quite as complicated as it might have been. “It’s private developers selling to private developers. And I was told by the Kyodo News service that they have only sold 10 per cent of the apartments, they have stopped sales, and even those 10 per cent were only due to be delivered to the inhabitants in 2023. “That’s a long window for the re-fit. Has it got to slip a few months? Possibly. But if you have the Games and Paralympic Games in the summer of 2021 you have got 18 months before your delivery. “Secondly you have got all the sports venues which it is probably not going to be too problematic to make available again. “And the third one which will be slightly more complicated is the Convention Centre where they have got the Main Press Centre and the International Broadcasting Centre. That will be booked out for other things and they are going to have to get moved. “But there is no problem that is insurmountable.” In June, the Tokyo 2020 chief executive Toshirō Mutō began talking about "simplified Games", adding that 200 ideas were being considered on how to achieve this and reduce costs, although no specific examples were offered. The comments came after Tokyo 2020 presented to the IOC Executive Board virtually on June 10, with the meeting outlining their position, the principles for re-planning and a roadmap for the Games in 2021. @insidethegames

"The Games will not be a grand splendour but will be a simplified Games," Mutō said in a press conference following the meeting. "In order to simplify the Games, we need to review and understand International Federations, National Olympic Committees, broadcasters and partners. "These stakeholders must act in unison to make sure of a simplified Games." Christophe Dubi, the IOC executive director for the Olympic Games, said test events and service levels are among the areas being assessed by organisers as ways to simplify. Mutō also stressed that the roadmap was a “guide” rather than firm deadlines. The roadmap outlines the competition schedule and venues as being among the major priorities, along with a clarification of the challenges caused by the postponement, and the refinement of plans.

Tokyo 2020 President Yoshirō Mori is overseeing a massive challenge. Photo: Getty Images

Two days later, Tokyo 2020 announced it had secured 80 per cent of venues for the postponed Olympic Games, although negotiations remained ongoing for the Athletes’ Village and the Tokyo Big Sight, the venue for the International Broadcast Centre and the Main Press Centre. "We are hoping to use the same venues for the same sports next year," Mutō said in a virtual press conference. "Adjustments still remain, but we are able to use 80 per cent of the facilities that were originally supposed to be used last year, they can be used again." The enhancement of operational capabilities and the implementation of COVID-19 related measures are expected to be tested early in 2021. Final preparations are outlined to begin in April, ahead of the Olympics opening on July 23.

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FILLING THE VOID Training has become unusual for athletes confined to their homes. Photo: Getty Images

The decimation of the competition calendar has left a gap for sporting organisations to fill. From the serious business of handing out masks to the creation of light-hearted videos, athletes and officials have adjusted to the current climate. Michael Houston reports.

hoever first coined the term “prepare for the worst” may want to leave an asterisk beside 2020 – a year that has thrown the rule book out with such defiance. Although discussions continue over which nations have handled the COVID-19 pandemic well and poorly, there was, and still is, an element of the unknown regarding the virus. For the first time in decades, global sport has been brought to its knees.

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Not since the Second World War have we seen cancellations on such a grand scale, and not just in sport, leaving the return to normality still without a scheduled date. It is not often that I look at the highestranked sporting administrators, often cosy in the company of their confidants, and feel sympathy. But they have truly been handed the worst hand in a game of poker – a pair of jokers not taken out of the pack. No matter what criticisms can be thrown at International Federations and National Olympic and Paralympic Committees, they have been forced to adapt to a situation in which they have no control over Government policy. Despite disagreements and mixed messages between athletes and the governing bodies – World Athletics’ qualification window controversy, for example – this period has shown that important decisions have had to be handled with urgency. With the postponement of the Tokyo 2020 Games to 2021, it leaves a void for athletes and governing bodies which are aiming to stay relevant in a period where live events would normally do that job for them.

So, many have created initiatives to do exactly that. Some have tugged on the heartstrings in an aim to boost public image, while others have indulged in cheesy, yet fun, videos and used them as an opportunity to show the personality of athletes which does not always come across well when they are competing. The Russian Olympic Committee is more often in the news for the reports of systemic doping in the nation and the ongoing issues with the World Anti-Doping Agency. However, it is clear the ROC is being proactive in its aim to stop the spread of the virus where possible – and the Russian Boxing Federation has been one of the busier national bodies in the country. At the end of March, the RBF set-up a nationwide hotline to assist its athletes, coaches and officials during the period of social restriction. But the help is not exclusive to those with cauliflower ears or bow tie referees – it is open for all athletes as well as the wider community. RBF general secretary Umar Kremlev said part of its aim was to ensure Russians were in

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MICHAEL HOUSTON JUNIOR REPORTER, INSIDETHEGAMES the best shape ahead of the Olympics, and they have delivered supplies to isolated athletes as well as to the nation’s World War Two veterans, pensioners and large families. Like many governing bodies, the RBF also turned its attention to funding the creation of masks and hand sanitiser - an item rare to find a couple of months ago, akin to finding a golden ticket for Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory. With this initiative, Russian boxers volunteered to deliver these health products, showing how important sport can be to communities and how many sports stars are willing to give back when push comes to shove. In May, the ROC announced a fitness programme called “Train With Champions”, in the same week that Russia went into lockdown. This led to some of the nation’s athletes hosting fitness sessions for the public. Olympic medallists Maria Paseka, an artistic gymnast, and Semen Elistratov, a short track speed skater, were among those taking the online classes over a three-week period. Athletes focussed on conditioning, lifestyle and physical drills to improve the health of the viewers. Athletes also used their names to inspire young people through sport and values, as part of the Olympic Patrol project.

The living room has replaced the gym during lockdown. Photo: Getty Images

Launched after the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics, the coronavirus crisis saw Olympic Patrol moved online for the first time, switching classrooms for living rooms. Olympic champions such as 2014 figure skating gold medallist Adelina Sotnikova spoke to children from different regions of Russia to teach them about the history of the Games and promote Olympic values. Although community is important in a crisis, for athletes, money talks. The International Tennis Federation has been instrumental in protecting its athletes who rely on prize money.

The Russian Boxing Federation has created masks and hand sanitiser. Photo: RBF

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While somewhere there will be a mathematical break-down on whether it is worth Roger Federer’s time to pick up a £10 note that he has dropped, further down the rankings that lavish lifestyle is not as prevalent. Eccentric German-Jamaican tennis player Dustin Brown has previously spoken about the days when he would live in his campervan in his first years as a professional – travelling to tournaments in it to ensure he had enough money to live on. For so many players, that is a reality and the ITF, working alongside the Association of Tennis Professionals and the Women’s Tennis Association, were able to create the Player Relief Programme to help athletes adversely affected by the pandemic. For perspective, being knocked out in the first round of the men’s or women’s singles at Wimbledon would make you enough money to live on for a year without taking into consideration other tournament appearances. Many players do not make it past qualifying or even receive entry.

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In athletics, it is even harder to make money at the top with Olympians known to work part-time jobs in supermarkets to assist their dreams. World Athletics is helping athletes who are well-versed in signing autographs and taking photographs with fans because, despite their fame, elite races are how they are able to survive. Similar to the ITF scheme, World Athletics has sought the funds through philanthropy – although not from the athletes, but from those who help fund the sport through the International Athletics Foundation, headed by Honorary President Prince Albert II of Monaco. Others have gone down the fun route of making entertaining content during the pandemic as people spend more time trawling through social media. One of the first moments that made me laugh out loud during all the impending doom was the International Sambo Federation’s response to the virus. I had read a press release that said something along the lines of “the fight against COVID” – a

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common trope in sports statements at the time – only to watch the FIAS video of one of its athletes, Ge Xiaolong, obliterating a training dummy with its bib reading “COVID-19”. The unexpected ruthlessness was both entertaining and funny and was followed-up with similar videos from sambists worldwide who were aiming to replicate the footage. This ended in a successful campaign to promote activity among athletes and the wider community. Sometimes, you wish it was as simple as giving the virus a suplex and making it disappear. And the continual rise of video platform TikTok has led to new ways of keeping up with social trends during this period, with challenges being set by content creators which then go viral. One of these has been the “Don’t Rush” challenge, a transformation video compilation of a group of people showing their “before and after” style. It first grew in popularity with women who showed what they looked like without and then with make-up, before branching out to funnier and more outlandish transformations. The International Wheelchair Basketball Federation kept it simple though, showing athletes from different countries in their day-to-day clothes before transforming into their team uniforms for when they play, with other teams and sports doing their own version too. British Olympians followed a similar pattern, after men’s hockey player Sam Ward came up with the idea of the “Isolation Games” on TikTok.

Hockey player Sam Ward tries out skeleton during his "Isolation Games". Photo: Sam Ward

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World Athletics is one of many governing bodies to introduce a funding package for its athletes. Photo: Getty Images

His creation saw him attempt sports at home during the lockdown after the postponement of Tokyo 2020, and included him channelling his inner Lizzy Yarnold by practicing the skeleton down the stairs on his kit bag – a bit of a poor choice in my opinion. Others included diver Leon Taylor poking fun at himself by scoring low marks in his sport because his dog distracted him. But the brilliant videos were only part of the Isolation Games. Money donated by fans was given to the British Red Cross and went towards food, medicine, vulnerable people and the National Health Service. The reason why sport carries on in the absence of the action is down to the administrative side. National Olympic Committees and International Federations have been handed some sour lemons during the pandemic and have still made some good lemonade. The big positive from the suspension of activity is it has allowed Federations to have better access to housebound personnel, albeit virtually. The National Olympic Committee of Kosovo recently took the opportunity to bring its top athletes together via a video conference for seminars regarding not just mental health – an important topic during lockdown – but mental fitness. It would have been very difficult for these athletes to attend these sessions if competition calendars were still ongoing and, in turn, they have gained skills. @insidethegames

The aim was to improve the way athletes are mentally prepared for competitions ahead of Kosovo’s second Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo. World Taekwondo decided to use the situation to its advantage too, with international coaching courses now available online for the first time due to the pandemic. Rather than completely cancelling courses, the governing body has used a period where many have more time on their hands to still give coaches the chance to become qualified. World Para Snow Sports held four separate days speaking to its member nations about the progression of its disciplines, as well as any concerns that those nations needed to address concerning the ongoing crisis. This is a common theme for Federations and NOCs. There are plenty more initiatives and schemes still ongoing that insidethegames has reported on and can be found on our website daily. An optimist would look at the position the world finds itself in and hope for positive change – with the hope that some of these practices can stay in place post-virus. This, of course, remains to be seen. But, when we look at the added effort to make fun content, the rise of video workshops and sport continuing to soldier on despite the financial difficulties, it might just force the change needed to keep sport affordable and thriving in the fall-out of one of the world’s most devastating disasters.

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NO ROUTINE DEPRESSION YEARS OF WORK

DOUBTS FOR 2021

NOT QUALIFIED

EVENTS CANCELLED TOKYO POSTPONED PANIC

COVID-19 LOCKED DOWN CANNOT TRAIN

STRESS

FUNDING CUT

NO SPONSOR MONEY ANXIETY

Looking after the mind The coronavirus pandemic has plunged sport into a period of uncertainty and placed great strain on the mental health of athletes. Nancy Gillen reports on a growing challenge.

n recent years, an increasing number of sportspeople have spoken out about their struggles, contributing to a worldwide trend of ending the stigma surrounding mental health. Athletes have long been considered to have fun and exciting jobs, often with great personal or monetary reward, but it has become clear that they also endure their own troubles. Momentum to address mental health issues in sport was beginning to grow, but, like everything else, was brought to a crunching

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halt by the coronavirus pandemic. Now, more than ever, athletesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; mental health is at great risk. Reports have emerged of sportspeople struggling in lockdown, with their ability to train severely curtailed. Their regimented routines are in disarray, and the camaraderie and social side of sport is absent. Add to this the uncertainty surrounding the return of sport, and a dangerous mix to the mental well-being of athletes is being formed. Those who were set to compete at the Olympics and Paralympics in Tokyo this summer may be feeling the strain more acutely. Some had already qualified for Tokyo 2020, while others were still vying for remaining places. Years of preparation had gone into an event which was just months away. All of a sudden, the Games were pushed back to 2021, with the rapid spread of coronavirus making it abundantly clear that competition could not take place safely later this year.

Callum Skinner, a former track cyclist, competed at Rio 2016 and won a gold medal in the team sprint and a silver in the individual sprint. He sits on the British Olympic Association Athletesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Commission and is lead athlete for the pressure group Global Athlete. The 27-year-old announced his retirement from cycling in March 2019 in order to focus on these roles and lobby to improve the rights and working conditions of athletes. Having experienced the build-up to an Olympic Games himself, Skinner revealed to insidethegames why athletes would be struggling with the postponement of Tokyo 2020. "For Olympic athletes, who have one opportunity every four years to make a name for themselves, to have that put on hold for a year is going to be a major stress," he said. "Sometimes people would say to me in the lead-up to 2016 that you must be training hard for the Olympics, maybe a couple of

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months out, when it's actually been a 10-year project, pretty much. "So there’s that level of dedication, which I think sometimes people don’t understand. And also, the intensity by which the athletes conduct themselves, their lives get tightened and tightened as they get closer to an Olympic Games. "You start to miss family events, social events, trying to get yourself to absolute peak perfection. "You make a lot of worthwhile sacrifices towards that single date, and then to have it moved, with not even that much certainty of it happening in 2021, is always going to be a major stress." Indeed, there are concerns the pandemic may still be an issue next year, once again throwing doubt on the Games. Japan Medical Association President Yoshitake Yokokura said it would be "hard to host them unless an effective vaccine is developed". Tokyo 2020 President Yoshirō Mori added to the apprehension when he said the Games would be scrapped if they cannot take

Global Athlete's Callum Skinner believes mental health is now of increased concern for sportsmen and women. Photo: Getty Images

place in 2021, while International Olympic Committee member Richard Pound concurred that next year would be the only chance for the event to be staged.

Domestic football seasons were stopped in their tracks due to COVID-19. Photo: Getty Images

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This uncertainty will again be playing at the back of athletes’ minds. "We have seen the Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee say that it won’t be postponed again, it will just be cancelled," Skinner said. "That would be devastating for the athletes. "What the athletes needed the most was clarity on postponement, and then the call can be made as soon as possible on what happens next if it looks like the Games can’t be hosted in 2021. "It’s a stressful time for athletes." Non-Olympic athletes are also under strain, however, and following the suspension of sport, some do not even have a future date to look forward to, no matter how precarious. Mental health issues are being widely reported among football players during the pandemic, for example.

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Football is, of course, an Olympic sport, but the men’s contest is only for under-23 players and it is not considered the pinnacle of a career. Domestic seasons have stopped dead in their tracks, with footballers uncertain about when matches will resume. Subsequently, the Professional Footballers’ Association reported a worrying spike in the number of footballers seeking mental health support in England. By April, 299 players had requested support. This is in comparison to the 653 who did so across the whole of 2019. The same data is being gathered by Professional Footballers Australia, which recently published findings from a survey of more than 150 of its members. Fifty-eight per cent of players reported symptoms of anxiety, while 45 per cent demonstrated symptoms of depression.

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Female athletes have been particularly susceptible to mental health issues during the pandemic. Photo: Getty Images

These figures are exponentially higher than during regular periods of time, when, for example, moderate-to-severe anxiety symptoms peak at about eight per cent. Such trends are also being picked up worldwide, demonstrated by a FIFPro study of 1,602 professional players from 16 countries, conducted between March 22 and April 14. It discovered that 22 per cent of 468 female players and 13 per cent of 1,134 male players reported symptoms consistent with a diagnosis of depression. It also found that 18 per cent of women and 16 per cent of men reported markers of generalised anxiety. The level of stress demonstrated by this ample evidence has been attributed to financial worries, boredom, social isolation and anxiety over the future. It is also interesting to note the increased susceptibility for mental health issues among female players. The pandemic has been disproportionately affecting sportswomen, and as a result they have been struggling more. This was confirmed by Jordan Guard, spokeswoman of The Women's Sport Alliance, an organisation set-up prepandemic to support elite sportswomen. "We have seen a 100 per cent increase in female footballers experiencing depressivelike symptoms since the lockdown and we should assume that this is a trend across all other womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sports," she said. "Women are generally more likely than men to show symptoms of depression or anxiety www.facebook.com/insidethegames

and this is something that should be taken into consideration when putting support systems in place. "The number of female athletes that did not have access to specialist mental health support, prior to the launch of the WSA, is severely worrying. These athletes have suddenly been thrown into isolation and are having to take time out from being the only person they know how to be â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a competitor. "Left without sport, many sportswomen are feeling lost and uncertain. Reports suggest that this uncertainty comes from concerns about their individual future and, more worryingly, the future of their entire sport.

"We know that when athletes go through horrific injuries or retire from competing as an athlete, there are negative mental health implications that need to be acknowledged and managed with coping strategies. "This is no different and even though it might seem like a temporary issue, athletes cannot be sure of how womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sports will look once the pandemic is over." The mental health issues female athletes are facing are even beginning to have physiological effects, highlighting the stress they are under. "Job insecurities and financial strains are causing physiological responses to the current pandemic on female athletes," said Guard. "A change in routine and a sudden alteration in training load, nutrition norms and sleep norms have instigated menstrual cycle irregularities, according to reports received by the WSA. "More frequent and more severe symptoms are being reported, adding to the stress of the pandemic." There is no doubt athletes all round the world are coming up against mental health issues, then, but the situation is worsened by a lack of structural support for sportspeople. When Skinner retired last year, he cited a wish to focus on other roles as the main reason. A few months later, however, he revealed that he also stepped back because he believed there was too much focus on performance and "not enough on getting better", despite disclosing his mental health problems to British Cycling. He still believes this is an issue, and that governing bodies should not just focus on sports psychology alone in order to help athletes.

There has been a spike in the number of footballers seeking mental health support. Photo: Getty Images

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Athletes are being encouraged to speak out if they suffer from mental health issues. Photo: Getty Images

"It's about the limitations of sports psychologists and practitioners, and when you’re dealing with lifestyle issues, sometimes that can be a bit of a barrier," he said. “You have to seek help from more general healthcare but then an athlete’s lifestyle is very unique. "I remember when I was suffering they said to me, 'we want you to take time off work', and I had to explain the scenario to them, saying that if I take a month off then it will take six months to get back to where I was and I would be in a far worse position. It’s a difficult sell. "Before this crisis, I started making a call to say we need to start investing in general health, and not necessarily sport psychologists but just general psychologists. "It was definitely one of the shortcomings that I was starting to find, it wasn’t so much my performance on the track but it was getting help with stuff that was going on off the track, so I think that’s something that needs to be boosted.” Convincing governing bodies to invest in such healthcare may

be tricky, however, due to the financial pressure put on such organisations by the pandemic. The suspension of sport has resulted in a loss of ticket, broadcasting and sponsorship revenue, while the postponement of Tokyo 2020 has also caused widespread economic woes. Some organisations such as the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee have had to let staff go, while others such as World Archery and United World Wrestling have furloughed staff or cut their wages. Skinner conceded governing bodies and sporting organisations

would have finances on their mind when considering an investment into mental health support, but he considers such a move worthy. "I totally appreciate that a lot of teams and governing bodies are in a very difficult position," he said. "In the United Kingdom, their funding was set with that Olympic date in mind, and it is not yet completely clear if that kind of funding is going to be there for another year. "Many governing bodies are looking at furloughing or making staff redundant. "I can see why it’s a hard sell to invest more money into athletes’

The new countdown to Tokyo 2020 has caused anxiety for hopeful Olympians. Photo: Getty Images

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healthcare, but it’s a worthwhile cause for sure." Athletes may also be reluctant to speak out due to the worry that their issues may seem trivial compared to others suffering during the pandemic. Skinner raised this pertinent point and encouraged athletes to still speak out if they feel like this. "Possibly a contributing factor to some of the mental health issues is that athletes will feel that their issues pale in comparison to what a lot of society is facing," he said. "The death toll in the United Kingdom is huge, and I think that sometimes to raise your voice and say you’re struggling over something like a sporting event, makes it feel a bit insignificant. "What I would say to athletes is, just because someone is suffering worse than you, it does not make your problem invalid. "Regardless of what you are going through, it’s important to speak up." Despite the struggles the sporting world is facing during the pandemic, some organisations have still put resources into mental health support.

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The perception of mental health could be changing in the sporting world. Photo: Getty Images

One example is the cash-strapped USOPC, which has created a mental health task force for athletes. The task force, comprised of Olympians, Paralympians, coaches and medical and mental health professionals, will be responsible for advising and collaborating with an internal USOPC mental health working group. "We are acutely aware of the mental health concerns facing our athletes â&#x20AC;&#x201C; heightened by the current environment in the Olympic and Paralympic community â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and are fully dedicated to being an active leader in providing support and resources to help athletes navigate the pressures, and at times, uncertainty, of their careers," USOPC chief medical officer Jonathan Finnoff said. "The goal of the task force is to ensure athletes, and the staff who are entrusted with their care, are well-informed and prepared to recognise and respond to individuals in need, both before and once mental health concerns arise." Elsewhere, the Canadian Olympic Committee, the Canadian Paralympic Committee, the Canadian Olympic and Paralympic Sport Institute Network, the Canadian Centre for Mental Health in Sport and not-for-profit organisation Own The Podium have combined to create a task force www.facebook.com/insidethegames

for athletes in the country. This will develop counselling plans that will be offered across numerous platforms such as webinars for athletes, coaches and team staff. The hope will be that these initiatives are continued post-pandemic, encouraging similar task forces worldwide. If athletes continue to speak out on their experiences under lockdown, this may also create an increased awareness of mental health issues in sport.

Indeed, the current crisis is expected to change the nature of sport forever. This could include the perception of mental health in the sporting world, and allow for athletes' struggles to be taken more seriously. There is a more pressing urgency for athletes to be looked after now, however, as the pandemic continues. Ensuring mental well-being in sport has never been more important.

A mental health task force has been established for athletes in the United States. Photo: Getty Images

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The lack of competition during the pandemic means that athletes’ homes have become the field of play. Liam Morgan looks at the virtual events which have tried to satisfy the world’s appetite for sport.

nternational Federations are often guilty of paying lip-service to innovation, promising to modernise while simultaneously appearing to stagnate by refusing to move away from old methods. A favoured mantra of International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, one which he touts at every possible opportunity when addressing IFs and other sports bodies, is “change or be changed”. As the proverb goes, necessity is the mother of invention and there is little doubt the coronavirus crisis has forced organisations in the Olympic world and beyond to innovate and enact such change. Some have risen to one of the challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic – that of filling the void left by the lack of live sport – better than others. As a result, we have seen pole vaulters compete from their garden while their child

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plays on a swing nearby, archers hitting the target from the inside of their garage and even a kitchen nine-darter during the crisis, all the product of the innovation many IFs preach but rarely deliver. Credit where credit is due, then, to the likes of World Athletics, World Archery and others who can attest to living up to that promise. At the time of writing, World Athletics has held three editions of a virtual event series it has launched in response to the absence of live sport. Several of the world’s top athletes have participated in the competitions, held under the self-explanatory banner of Ultimate Garden Clash, the first of which was devised by former world pole vault record holder Renaud Lavillenie. The Frenchman, world record holder Armand Duplantis of Sweden and double world champion Sam Kendricks of the United States

set the tone for what has proven to be a successful series so far. The trio went head-tohead from their respective homes in a 30-minute contest, where the winner was the athlete with the most five metre clearances. The event featured all the expected and unexpected quirks - Lavillenie was vaulting as his daughter played on the swing further down the plot, for example - and was a light-hearted affair, but the athletes managed to retain that competitive edge which makes sport so compelling. No wonder World Athletics were jumping for joy at the spectacle. From the organisation’s point of view, it could scarcely have gone better. Instead of crashing to the mat, the inaugural Ultimate Garden Clash comfortably cleared the bar. According to the worldwide body – which is frequently reminded of the need to

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innovate to attract new fans and fill the hole left by the departure of sprint king Usain Bolt – the competition attracted more than 250,000 live views globally, while one million people are said to have watched some part of the event within 24 hours of it taking place. There is perhaps the case that athletics fans so starved of action would have enjoyed anything put in front of them and, as World Athletics President Sebastian Coe pointed out, the sport is better tailored to such an environment than some of its Olympic counterparts. But the first event was so well received that two further Ultimate Garden Clash competitions – one for female pole vaulters and another decathlon-style competition involving pole vault, shot put and a gruelling shuttle run – have since been beamed to a sport-hungry audience by World Athletics. www.facebook.com/insidethegames

“Being an individual sport has allowed us to probably be more creative and to do more things than some of the team sports,” Coe said. “The Ultimate Garden Clash is quintessentially that. “You are not worrying about getting 22 people off to a pitch and you are not worrying about contact sport like boxing or rugby.” Archery has also been able to benefit from being a predominantly individual discipline, with its worldwide governing body staging two remote “Lockdown Knockout” tournaments since the pandemic ground practically every sport to a halt. Coined by World Archery head of communications Chris Wells, the competitions, one for compound and one for recurve archers, have seen athletes compete via video link from wherever their targets were located, be it the kitchen, garage or garden. The events were only open to archers “who can safely shoot in socially distanced settings and in accordance with local health guidance”, World Archery said, while English-speaking international athletes in European and American time zones were considered based on fan following, geographical distribution and access to the appropriate technology. Colombia’s Sara López won the compound tournament, although her gold medal match was plagued by one of the perils of remote events – a weak wi-fi signal. López, the world number two, struggled with connection issues during her final against Norway’s reigning world youth champion Anders Faugstad as the hot weather in her home in Pereira, a city in the foothills of the Andes, caused her devices to overheat. It got to the stage where her father and brother had to hold umbrellas to protect the cameras from the heat to enable the competition to resume.

Pole vault's Ultimate Garden Clash was a success. Photo: World Athletics

“When restrictions started to come in we discussed how we could serve our three key audiences – fans, sport participants and the public – and the idea of the Lockdown Knockout worked for two of those,” World Archery secretary general Tom Dielen told insidethegames. “There were distinct challenges with technology but, given the cost-value of this initiative, this was actually never a concern. “We were not promising a perfect broadcast and the output has fulfilled the goal we set, which was to serve two of our key audiences. “The athletes also seemed to really enjoy competing, which was fantastic. The coverage on television, both news and highlights take-up, was far greater than we imagined. “The hardest thing was probably deciding to go ahead with the project. The logistics were all solvable, as long as we accepted that there were some things that were out of our control.” World Athletics and World Archery are not the only two organisations to have plugged the gap with remote competitions. Outside of the Olympic bubble, the Professional Darts Corporation held its first “At Home” tour, a month-long virtual circuit which involved a total of more than 100 players competing over 42 nights. One of those players, two-time world champion Gary Anderson, was initially

Esports have enjoyed increased prominence during the lockdown. Photo: Getty Images

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“The badminton community is standing together and working in solidarity to ensure the fast but safe return of our sport so that our players can once again inspire the hundreds of millions of badminton fans around the world.” – BWF Secretary General Thomas Lund

From left: BWF Deputy President Khunying Patama Leeswadtrakul, BWF Secretary General Thomas Lund, and BWF President Poul-Erik Høyer. 30

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Top Left: Renaud Lavillenie competed at home while his daughter played on a swing further up the garden. Photo: Getty Images Bottom Right: Archery has taken place in untraditional settings. Photo: Getty Images

forced to withdraw because of a poor wi-fi connection. “I was up for it but when we did tests of my wi-fi, it’s just not reliable enough,” the Scot told British newspaper The Sun. “It doesn’t surprise me. I struggle to pay bills online in my house, it’s really frustrating.” Other sports, including weightlifting, are moving into the virtual realm after Oceania Weightlifting Federation general secretary Paul Coffa unveiled plans to stage an email-based competition to coincide with the original start date of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. The Eleiko Email International Lifters Tournament, due to run from July 24 to 25, includes all 20 weight classes and is open to every nation, as well as clubs and individual athletes, and will see athletes lift from their home before submitting their results by email. Officials have acknowledged there is a certain degree of trust involved, but competitors would only be cheating themselves if they choose to be economical with their true totals. Plans to hold a virtual competition in the Pan American region via video were also underway until the International Weightlifting Federation became embroiled in crisis following the publication of a report into alleged corruption at the organisation. The dearth of live sport has also provided a well-documented opportunity for esports www.facebook.com/insidethegames

to widen its reach and continue a path which some believe will culminate in a place on the Olympic Games programme. Without live action, and amid lockdowns imposed by Governments to curb the spread of the COVID-19 virus, fans have turned to virtual versions of their preferred sports in their droves. Figures cited by newly-elected International Esports Federation President Vlad Marinescu purportedly show that the esports and gaming market increased by 35 per cent between January and March, while companies such as Electronic Arts manufacturers of the FIFA, Madden and NBA franchises among others - have enjoyed substantial early-year revenue increases. Instead of facing each other on the pitch, footballers have been testing their skills on FIFA 20, while the lockdown has also seen the likes of English cricketer Ben Stokes take part in a Formula One virtual Grand Prix. It is not just virtual versions of real sports which have proved popular. The BBC, for example, struck an agreement with Psyonix to show the Rocket League European Spring Series across its website, app and BBC iPlayer. Admittedly there is a sporting element to the game – it involves cars playing football, essentially – but few would argue it is in any way traditional. More generally, awareness of esports has risen exponentially. People who shrugged it off as a mere fad are gradually warming to @insidethegames

the concept, which has appeared on our television screens with increasing regularity in the absence of actual sports events. “Because of the COVID crisis you have today more sales than ever of games, you have today more people playing than ever in games, while more people are streaming than ever and more people are watching,” Marinescu said. “So a result of the COVID crisis is that you have an increase in the gaming activity on all fronts regarding the commercial part.” The success of World Athletics and World Archery’s foray into remote competitions, coupled with the ongoing growth of esports and how organisations have used esports to deliver content to their fans, has raised a pertinent question: should federations and governing bodies continue to pursue organising such events even when the coronavirus crisis is over? After all, they have managed to be both jovial and combative, and have provided fans with entertainment and enjoyment at a time where both have been few and far between. “The Lockdown Knockout, and its hashtag, will be retired soon,” Dielen says. “But what we’ve learned about remote production could easily be applied in future, even in part to our flagship events like the Hyundai Archery World Cup.

“If we continued with a similar full remote product, we would likely have to take it in one of two directions. “Either use the approach to make casual content with a renewed focus on interview, because it is a fantastic way to showcase an athlete’s personality, or increase the spend and solidify the remote connections (and potentially the cameras) and make a full live broadcast product. “Either way, it’s been a very beneficial initiative in a particularly challenging time for archery and sport as a whole.”

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FIXING A BRO KEN SPORT Weightlifting has been described as the only sport with a problem bigger than the pandemic. Brian Oliver explores the doping crisis and the hopes to level the playing field.

he last time Britain’s weightlifters competed on anything like a level playing field at the Olympic Games was in 1984, when a Soviet-led political boycott kept most of the “doping countries”, as they are not so fondly known, at home. Fourteen Eastern Bloc nations did not travel to Los Angeles, where Australia and Italy won gold, China topped the medals table for the first time and David Mercer won a bronze, the last time a British weightlifter stood on the Olympic podium. Dave Morgan, arguably Britain’s best weightlifter of the past half-century with a record five overall Commonwealth Games golds, was fourth behind a Soviet Union winner at Seoul 1988 when normal service was resumed. The top three achievers in Seoul were the Soviets, Bulgaria and East Germany – a fine performance from Bulgaria, especially, given that its team was thrown out before the Games finished because of a doping scandal. Since then Britain has achieved little in men’s Olympic weightlifting, its dedicated team of athletes and coaches looking on

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as doped-up rivals have left them way behind. In truth, Britain has never been a powerhouse in the sport, but it might have been, given a chance to compete on equal terms. The women have fared better and are still in there fighting, as Emily Muskett showed last year by becoming Britain’s first International Weightlifting Federation World Championships medallist in 25 years. Three other British women, Zoe Smith, Sarah Davies and Emily Campbell, are well placed to qualify for next year’s postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. That is a remarkable achievement given they are all self-funded. The common knowledge, articulated three years ago by International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, that weightlifting had “a massive doping problem”, coupled with Britain’s lack of success, led to UK Sport cutting its funding three weeks after the German’s comment. So while lifting weights has become ever more popular around the world, largely because of CrossFit’s popularity and a wider

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Weightlifting has more time for change after Tokyo 2020 was postponed. Photo: Getty Images

recognition of the physical and mental benefits of weightlifting, the elite level of the sport has hit a low point in Britain. Britain is now one of the strongest all-round Olympic nations, competitive in sports that are truly global, such as athletics, boxing and gymnastics – but not in weightlifting. Dave Sawyer, who coaches both Davies and Campbell, is frustrated by that and says: “What we really, really need is an Olympic medal from somewhere – it would make so much difference here.” Sawyer is optimistic, more so now than ever, as a direct result of the corruption scandal that has engulfed weightlifting over the first half of 2020. Despite the negative headlines in all of the world’s biggest news outlets, the findings of the Mclaren Independent Weightlifting Investigation could be just what Britain, other “clean” nations, and above all the sport itself, needs, Sawyer believes. The headlines between January and June were inevitable given what the McLaren team found – more than $10 million unaccounted for, elections bought by bribes and doping cover-ups overseen by the “autocratic” Tamás Aján, who was general secretary and President of the IWF for 44 years. Some of the stories were shocking: the President of Azerbaijan thanking Aján for deliberately delaying doping suspensions so athletes could compete in a prestigious competition hosted by his own nation; and delegates paid between $5,000 and $30,000 for their votes to keep Aján in power. Aján's "meddling" in anti-doping procedures, against the rules of the body he led, was highlighted by the McLaren team. The period from 2009 to 2019 was "the worst decade of doping the sport of www.facebook.com/insidethegames

weightlifting has ever experienced” with more than 600 violations, said the report. “Throughout this time Dr Aján was a proud member of the WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency) Foundation Board, boasting about his clean sport while presiding over one of the dirtiest decades in history,” the report said. Aján collected huge sums in cash, paid directly to him for doping fines. “It is absolutely impossible to determine how much of the cash collected or withdrawn was used for legitimate expenses,” said the report, which pointed out that much of it was spent in buying votes, having been carried across borders with the help of Aján’s diplomatic passport issued by the Hungarian authorities. No other sport has come close to weightlifting in racking up negative publicity this year. “It’s embarrassing to say it but weightlifting is the only sport where the pandemic is not the biggest news story of the year,” said Sawyer. “The image is so bad, even in Britain some people think our own lifters must be caught up in the doping – that’s definitely not the case. “The McLaren report is more bad publicity for weightlifting, but on the bright side it’s nice that the cheats are being caught, and it seems we have the right people in charge to change things for the better. “It’s long been obvious that the IWF needs to change the constitution, and it needs clean countries on the Board. It looks like both are

Australia's Dean Lukin won gold at Los Angeles 1984, when the sport enjoyed a level playing field. Photo: Getty Images

going to happen and that’s very good news.” Sawyer said he and other coaches had suspected corruption in anti-doping for years. As the McLaren report showed, Aján had such a stranglehold on the IWF it was impossible for anybody to intervene until this year, when the broadcast of a German TV documentary was followed by the appointment of McLaren to investigate corruption allegations. It led to the resignation of Aján, and the installation of the American Ursula Papandrea as Interim President of the IWF.

Britain is not a global force in weightlifting, but perhaps never had the chance. Photo: Getty Images

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Kazakhstan's Ilya Ilyin has now retired after losing two Olympic gold medals for doping. Photo: Getty Images

“When the changes are made, the medals will be spread around a lot more,” said Sawyer. “Britain will have a chance. “If those doping lifters had been clean over the years they’d have been lifting 50 kilograms less than they did – just look at Ilya Ilyin.” Ilyin, from Kazakhstan, forfeited two Olympic gold medals when the IOC retested samples from the 2008 and 2012 Olympic Games and found more than 60 weightlifters had been doping. He was, and maybe still is, the most popular weightlifter in the world, with many hundreds of thousands of social media followers, including plenty of current athletes who are impressed by Ilyin’s feats despite the knowledge that he was doping. Ilyin escaped with a two-year suspension for those two Olympic positives on a technicality, and returned in 2018 full of hope that he would qualify for Tokyo 2020. In six Olympic qualifying competitions in 2019 and 2020 he never got closer than 72kg short of his career-high total made in 2015. Of course it was tough after so long out of the sport, and at 32 he was possibly past his www.facebook.com/insidethegames

prime, but when Ilyin competed on a level playing field he was just another weightlifter whose best effort was 45kg lower than the Chinese gold medal favourite Tian Tao. Another landmark moment for weightlifting came in the first week of May, when Ilyin gave up a losing battle and announced his retirement. Before he decided to quit, he did an interview with Seb Ostrowicz for weightliftinghouse, a popular and insightful weightlifting website. Ilyin made many long pauses, struggled to find the right words, and said he could never speak about the subject in his native Kazakhstan, but he did talk about doping. There was no apology, no sense of remorse or wrongdoing, which is not surprising given so many weightlifters were doping as a matter of course throughout Ilyin’s career. In the infamous 94kg class in which he twice won Olympic gold, three athletes were retrospectively caught for doping at Beijing 2008 and eight more at London 2012, where the Iranian who finished fifth ended up with gold. @insidethegames

Known dopers, who did not test positive in the retests, ended up with medals. Ilyin was in the gym, confident of a third straight gold at Rio, when news of the IOC retests was relayed to him in a call from Kazakhstan’s Sports Ministry. He had been working hard for two-and-ahalf years by then, during which time he competed only twice – and made the two best totals of his career. When he heard, he said, his brain stopped working. “All that training, then this…” After a very long pause, he continued: “I cannot translate what happened inside me… so bad, so bad.” He felt completely alone, he said, unable to talk to those in his coaching and management team who knew what had been going on. Pressing his hands down on his head, he said: “Only you. All the problem is on you. I couldn’t talk to anyone about it, even now I can’t.” He could just about bear to discuss it with Ostrowicz as he was one of the “people who know sports, who understand what happened in our sport”.

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But for anybody else, anyone who was critical: “I can’t give my energy to these people.” Ilyin was in a bad place for more than a year because “weightlifting was my life, it is what I love, and suddenly I couldn’t do it. I had a broken life”. He felt those Olympic medals were still his. “Inside me the medals are still mine,” he said. “My opponent who has them, he knows that they are my medals.” Ilyin believes that some of those who now have medals were doing just as he did, taking steroids, and he knew of many other athletes, not just in weightlifting, who were on performance-enhancing drugs. “It is not only my fault, it is not only the athlete,” he said. “The problem is much deeper, (but) only athletes get punished. If athletes get together and talk about it, who knows… but we can’t, I feel that athletes are alone.” He felt incapable of saying anything bad about Kazakhstan despite the collusion of so many others in doping. Ilyin also said that pharmaceutical help would always be a part of Olympic sport. “It’s part of the big system,” he said. “I don’t understand how they (athletes in all sports, not just weightlifting) will be without pharmaceutical help.” Maybe legal supplements would be enough, Ilyin suggested, but athletes need to have help because “we must work even harder than soldiers”. In campaigning for the IWF Presidency three years ago – a contest he lost to Aján because of bribes paid for votes – the European Weightlifting Federation President Antonio Urso said the sport’s big problem was everybody focusing on one athlete lifting superhuman totals, when what it needed was contests where 10 athletes lifted roughly the

same. Ilyin appeared to disagree in his weightliftinghouse interview. “Professional sport 30 to 40 years ago jumped more than human ability, so if there were no pharmaceuticals results would go down and sport would be nothing, if we speak now seriously,” he said. Asked if it would be possible to take all pharmaceutical assistance out of weightlifting, legal or illegal, he said “no”. Pharmaceutical companies were too involved in the big-money world of sport, he said. Since Ilyin’s disqualifications Kazakhstan, like Russia, has cleaned-up markedly by catching cheats at national level, and by almost disappearing from the list of current doping violations. Sawyer was there to see one of Ilyin’s last appearances, at the 2019 British International Open in Coventry where he was cheered by an enthusiastic crowd. It is a case of “good riddance” to Ilyin for Sawyer, who said: “It’s water under the bridge now. “It looks like we’re moving forward, and the sport will be so much better for it.” Among those who still follow Ilyin is Caine Wilkes, the American super-heavyweight who was the last man to make a lift in Olympic qualifying this year before the COVID-19 pandemic ended international competition and, for most athletes, closed their training venue. Wilkes, who at 32 is the same age as Ilyin, and for whom the Tokyo Olympic Games will be a career-ending competition should he qualify, said: “I still follow him on Instagram and watch his lifts. “Regardless of whether someone is clean or cheating, honestly you watch a big lift and you’re impressed.

The scandal in weightlifting could put the sport on the road to positive change. Photo: Getty Images

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“Even if they are cheating it still takes work to get to that level so there’s still some respect for someone able to achieve that, even if they aren’t playing by the rules.” He is not so impressed by Ilyin’s view that his forfeited medals “are still mine”. “That’s actually an interesting take,” said Wilkes. “I can respect what he’s done but if you’re caught not playing by the rules, that’s your fault. “I do know our culture here in the US, and in England, is very different on cheating compared to those countries where it’s a part of the programme, where using PEDs is part of the game. “When an athlete is banned they are more surprised than anything, as if they think ‘I didn’t know this was not part of the game’. “If you’ve been in weightlifting for 20 years, as I have, you’ve heard the rumours. “There’s both sides to the coin. It almost feels when you talk about the sport being dirty that it’s like saying 'everyone who's lifting more than me is cheating', and I tried to be rational about it. “Some people are taking advantage of it but they are not all cheating.” Wilkes followed the news from the McLaren report and while he found it disappointing, he echoed Sawyer in saying: “Even though it’s a lot of bad news, hopefully it’s a step in the right direction for further cleaning up the sport.” Never before in Wilkes’ weightlifting career have Americans held high office at the IWF, as they do now through Papandrea and the deputy director general Phil Andrews, who is also chief executive of USA Weightlifting. “Even though it’s a pretty big battle we’re fighting there have been a lot of steps in the right direction in the last few years,” he said. “Having more representation for the US has to help in fighting for clean sport, as our country in particular has been fighting for that for a long time.” Wilkes, who hopes to focus more on coaching after Tokyo 2020, has been trained by his father throughout his career. He is planning to compete in the South American Open in Cali, Colombia, in October, and is “quietly optimistic” about being in Tokyo. He is “very excited” about gyms reopening as COVID-related lockdown conditions ease, and has been training in his garage for many weeks. Wilkes made an impressive total of 405kg at

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American Caine Wilkes followed the McLaren report revelations with interest. Photo: Getty Images

the last Olympic qualifying competition to take place, the Rogue Weightlifting Challenge at Columbus, Ohio, which was part of the Arnold Sports Festival in early March. That fitness and strength sports festival, which usually draws crowds of 250,000 to 300,000 over its four days, went ahead behind closed doors, with only athletes in the audience. While Wilkes was the last man to lift, the last weightlifter on the platform was Sarah Robles in the women’s super-heavyweights. Her coach, Tim Swords, has been to The Arnold – sponsored by Arnold Schwarzenegger – many times. “I’ve never seen anything like it, it was deserted,” said Swords, who has been a successful coach for many years in League City, Texas. “When they opened the door I thought ‘what the hell?’ “The whole convention centre area, where there are normally so many exhibits, wasn’t

Coach Tim Swords with lifter Sarah Robles. Photo: Tim Swords

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even open. The lack of spectators does affect the athletes – the crowd can lift you, for sure.” Unlike other coaches, Swords uses his garage, 450 square feet of it, as a training base rather than a gym, with other equipment at the back of his house. “Everybody else shut down but I never shut down,” he said. “There’s a lot of weights being lifted in that garage. I’ve been all over this country and I don’t think there’s anything like this garage anywhere.” Swords does not believe his athletes, including Tokyo medal contender Robles, are as concerned with the corruption scandal as they are with training. He said the pandemic has been “a huge emotional let-down” and especially bad for young lifters who have made the team for the first time. “Sarah has an advantage, she has the garage here and one at her apartment complex – she has everything she needs,” Swords said. “She has slowed down, as she has nothing to prepare for. We’re working hard but we’re not killing ourselves.” Are the athletes following the corruption stories? “I think all in all the athletes just get on with their training,” he said. “They’ve got enough to worry about. “Thank God the USA Weightlifting @insidethegames

stipends are still coming in. Sarah doesn’t pay much attention, not compared to before – she just puts her work in and it’s less stress for her not to think about it too much.” As for his own views, Swords said: “I wouldn’t trust Aján as far as I could throw him. “He’s pretty big and I don’t think I could throw him very far. But I don’t need to pollute my mind with a bunch of stuff I can’t do anything about. “We’ve been dealing with it (doping) since the 1970s. We’re trying to keep people positive, that’s how it works in this little project.” Back in England, Sawyer’s Olympic hopefuls have also been training in makeshift conditions. Davies borrowed some equipment so she could train in the garage, while Campbell set up a platform in a gazebo in her garden. The delay caused by the pandemic could benefit Campbell, who has already had knee surgery that was planned for after the Olympics, and will be fit in good time for the final phase of qualifying for Tokyo. If there are any more doping-related suspensions for other nations or individuals in Tokyo, which is a possibility, it will help Campbell’s chances. “If she’s 100 per cent she’ll be lifting some big weights in Tokyo,” said Sawyer. And maybe, by then, she will be able to feel she is lifting on equal terms with her rivals.

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e s r Cu

The

40-year

Tokyo 2020 has been postponed due to coronavirus, the Games in the Japanese capital in 1940 never went ahead and Moscow 1980 was heavily boycotted. Does the Olympic Movement really have a 40-year curse? Philip Barker reports.

t was Japan’s Deputy Prime Minister Tarō Asō who coined the phrase “Cursed Olympics” back in March. “It’s a problem that’s happened every 40 years and that’s a fact,” he told a Japanese Parliamentary Committee just days before the postponement of Tokyo 2020 was confirmed. The coronavirus crisis has plunged the Olympic Movement into limbo, the same state it was in when Tokyo was forced to give up the right to host the Games of the XII Olympiad in 1940 before they were later cancelled altogether.

Forty years later, Moscow's 1980 Olympics did go ahead, but were sadly diluted by a bitter boycott campaign. Now, the immediate sporting future is once again uncertain. Japan’s early Olympic history was guided by Jigorō Kanō. A revered figure in the development of martial arts and the founder of the Kodokan Judo Institute, Kanō was considered the “father of amateur sport”. He was co-opted to the International Olympic Committee in 1909, led the first Japanese Olympic team in 1912 and was a key figure in promoting Tokyo’s first Olympic bid.

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By the early 1930s, the Japanese were winning Olympic medals on a regular basis. At the 1932 Los Angeles Games, Kanō and fellow IOC member Seiichi Kishi told their international colleagues: “The wish of the entire population is that the Games of 1940 will be celebrated in Tokyo.” Holding the Games in 1940 would have commemorated the 2,600th anniversary of the installation of Jimmu as the first Emperor of Japan. Kishi later gave an account of the activities to Emperor Hirohito.

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Japan's Deputy Prime Minister Tarō Asō has spoken of "cursed Olympics". Photo: Getty Images

“The situation is not an easy one,” he warned. “The hope is slightly dimmed by the fact that the other cities running as candidates started their invitation movement about 10 years earlier than Tokyo." At least nine cities were in the running at one stage or another. By 1935, Rome had emerged as the main opposition although Helsinki and London were also interested. Italy was under the rule of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini, and he withdrew the Roman bid and endorsed Tokyo in what was described as “a generous gesture”. The formal host city vote was eventually taken at the IOC Session in Berlin, shortly before the 1936 Olympics. Japan sent 247 competitors and officials to the German capital, their largest Olympic team at that point. Before the vote, IOC President Comte Henri Baillet-Latour, a recent visitor to Japan, told his fellow members: “The sporting Olympic spirit has penetrated into all classes of the population.” As with Tokyo 2020, reconstruction was a theme of the 1940 bid. In 1923, Tokyo was devastated by an earthquake and fire. Count Michimasa Soyeshima emphasised the re-building in his presentation. When the vote was taken, Tokyo beat Helsinki to prompt celebration in the Japanese capital. There had been moves to boycott Berlin as the Nazi persecution of Jewish citizens had already begun, but the 1936 Games went ahead. In what would now be regarded as a “transfer of knowledge”, chief organiser Carl Diem arranged for Werner Klingenberg, an official who had worked on the 1936 Games, to join the Tokyo 1940 Organising Committee as “technical advisor”. www.facebook.com/insidethegames

The Committee included General Hideki Tojo, who was listed as “vice-minister of war”, and vice-admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, later to mastermind the attack on Pearl Harbor. Klingenberg and some administrative staff sailed to Tokyo and took with them a message from IOC founder Pierre de Coubertin. “The task of celebrating the XII Games will be the greatest ever given to a country,” the message said. “It does not mean merely to unite the whole of Asia with modern Olympism, but also to combine Hellenism, the most precious civilisation of ancient Europe, with the refined culture and art of Asia.” The official minutes of the 1937 IOC Session in Warsaw revealed “many questions relative to the climate”, mirroring concerns about the heat regarding Tokyo 2020. After alternative dates were considered, agreement was eventually reached for the 1940 Games to begin on a Saturday, September 21. The detailed schedule included fencing, wrestling, modern pentathlon and athletics on the first day of competition. Demonstrations in baseball and budō, a martial art form which included judo, were also staged. The city of Tokyo had agreed to allocate ¥1.5 million to assist with the travelling costs of visiting teams, and there had even been agreement with the Soviets to allow travel by the Trans-Siberian railway. "Europe should find time for the journey which the countries outside Europe make at each Olympic Games," suggested Count Soyeshima. Plans were laid for a spectacular Torch Relay to spread the Olympic message. Yet, set against the words of international goodwill, Japan embarked on an aggressive policy of military expansion into China. In early 1938, Kanō was still telling foreign reporters: “I don’t see any reason for anyone to say anything about abandoning the Games.” Official reports referred euphemistically to the “unforeseen Sino-Japanese incident”. When the IOC met in Cairo that May, they heard a telegram from Dr Chen-Ting Wang, the member in China, who proposed “that the site of the Games of 1940 should be changed”. @insidethegames

The motion was rejected as “the text of the Olympic Charter contains nothing which would permit such a decision”. The IOC members were “unanimously of the opinion that the decision in this matter must rest with Japan alone,” it was ruled. Even so, the IOC felt the need to “caution Japan, putting her on her guard as to the seriousness of the situation”. Kanō himself died on board a ship as he returned home. Shortly afterwards, it was announced that the 1940 Olympic Games would not take place in Tokyo. Organising Committee President Prince Iesato Tokugawa wrote: “The trouble in China had come to take on larger proportions and it was gradually realised that all of Japan’s resources must be mobilised to enable the nation to make a speedy end of the trouble.”

The Tokyo 1940 Olympics were doomed never to take place. Photo: Getty Images

IOC President Baillet-Latour replied: “Hoping for better days when you will be able to play your part for the diffusion of Olympic ideas in the Far East.” Helsinki was chosen to replace Tokyo. In June 1938, a new stadium opened in the Finnish capital which was planned as the centrepiece of the Games. However, by November 1939, Finland was also at war. Their conflict with invading Soviet forces ensured the Games of 1940 never did take place, nor were there Games in 1944. When the Olympic Flame burned again in 1948, Germany and Japan were not invited.

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PHILIP BARKER HISTORIAN, INSIDETHEGAMES

A protester campaigns for the boycott of the Moscow 1980 Olympics. Photo: Getty Images

They did not return until the 1952 Games in Helsinki. The Soviet Union also took part. They had previously rejected the Olympics, but after the war the Kremlin realised the value of sport in terms of political propaganda. In 1962, Moscow hosted an IOC Session and, by the end of the decade, they had set their sights on the Games themselves. They lost out to Montreal in their bid for 1976, leaving some Soviet delegates fuming about conspiracy theories. Even so, they tried again for 1980. In the meantime, they hosted the 1973 Summer Universiade, the major event in student sport. IOC President Lord Killanin was among many foreign dignitaries invited, and the following year Moscow was confirmed as the host city for the 1980 Olympics. When Killanin left Moscow after an inspection visit in 1976, Olympic organisers were “convinced that everything connected with the construction of the sports complex would be completed on time”. After endless construction problems in Montreal, it must have come as a relief. In 1979, the Russians flung open the doors of the Spartakiade, their huge domestic multi-sports festival, to competitors from across the world. This provided invaluable operational experience for the organisers. The American network NBC was to televise Moscow 1980. Executive producer Don Ohlmeyer wrote: “With a year to go before the Olympic Games, the Soviets are right on schedule as they proved during the Spartakiade telecasts. The broadcast centre is coming along even better than we www.facebook.com/insidethegames

expected.” On October 1, 1979, a 12-man crew from NBC began work in Moscow. “As things are going now, I have every reason to believe that the 1980 Olympic telecasts will not only be the biggest ever, but the best as well,” wrote Ohlmeyer. That optimism turned to dust in December 1979, when Soviet forces entered Afghanistan. American President Jimmy Carter demanded a withdrawal, or that the Games be moved “to an alternate site, or multiple sites, or postponed, or cancelled”. Secretary of state Cyrus Vance was sent to open the IOC Session before the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympics. He made a highly politicised speech which enraged many. “We are surprised to listen to such a political speech,” said future IOC President Juan Antonio Samaranch. In many countries, the athletes took action. In Britain, 79 signed a declaration by the International Athletes Club. “We affirm our right to take part in the Olympic Games in Moscow,” they said. “We make it clear we do not support Soviet domestic and foreign policies but we are not prepared to preside over the destruction of the Olympic Movement.”

Tokyo 2020's original dates have been scrapped. Photo: Getty Images

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International Federations gathered in Lausanne and issued a statement asserting that a sports boycott was “an improper method to use in trying to obtain a political end”. Association of National Olympic Committees President Mario Vázquez Raña spoke of rejecting outside pressures “whether of a political, religious or economic nature”. Later, the National Olympic Committees of Europe gathered in Rome and devised an eight-point plan to “ensure full European participation”. This included the use of an Olympic flag at all medal ceremonies. In the United States, 1976 rowing bronze medallist Anita DeFrantz brought legal proceedings against the Government but in vain. The Moscow Games did open on July 19, 1980, exactly as they were scheduled to do. In all, 5,259 athletes from 80 nations did take part, but 66 nations joined the American boycott. “I would like to welcome all the athletes and officials here today, especially those who have shown their complete independence to travel to compete, despite many pressures placed on them,” Killanin said. “I must repeat that these Games belong to the International Olympic Committee, and are allocated purely on the ability of the host city to organise them.” The spectacular ceremony which opened the Games went largely unseen in Western countries. Although Radio Moscow claimed a “festive atmosphere” had prevailed, even Killanin described the Games as “joyless”. His closing address called upon the world to “unite in peace before a holocaust descends”. Many stars from the US, Canada, West Germany and Japan were absent. When the Flame was lit for Tokyo 2020 in March, Japanese Olympic Committee President Yasuhiro Yamashita and IOC President Thomas Bach were both able to recall how they had been denied the chance to compete in Moscow. “I suffered from the boycott of Moscow 1980 and I am sure the athletes are hoping that the 2020 Games go ahead in a secure and safe manner," Yamashita said. With coronavirus delaying Tokyo 2020 until 2021, their big fear still remains that another generation will not have their Olympic opportunity for a very different reason.

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MIKE ROWBOTTOM CHIEF FEATURE WRITER, INSIDETHEGAMES

A disaster and a triumph Human beings have not let the lockdown quash their spirit, with sprinkles of light found amongst the darkness. Mike Rowbottom reports.

was reading one of those sporting biography features recently which finished with a question-and-answer section. When it came to the single-word section “motto”, the response was: “Nothing springs to mind.” Was this a statement of fact – or a nihilistic lament? Two ways of looking at it… I guess it is the same with COVID-19. You can probably sketch in the debit side without too much prompting. But lights shine in the darkness. When the pandemic is history people will remember the efforts of the likes of Captain Tom Moore, the former British Army officer who, shortly before his 100th birthday, set out to raise £1,000 for the National Health Service by completing 100 laps of his garden before nudging up his century. As his media profile rose, so did the amount he raised. By the time his JustGiving page closed the target had been comfortably reached – the final amount was more than £32 million. That was some exercise for Moore, who received a knighthood in May. Exercise of a more vigorous, if less spectacularly profitable, nature has been widely undertaken during the coronavirus lockdown as thwarted sportsmen and women have striven to give expression to their natural competitiveness – and desire to help deserving causes. In April, the Welsh 2018 Tour de France winner Geraint Thomas raised more than £300,000 for the NHS with a sponsored ride on the Zwift virtual trainer totalling 36 hours. British rower James Cracknell, a fours gold medallist at the Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004 Olympics, achieved another landmark demonstration of his restless spirit last year as, at 46, he became the oldest man to take part in the annual Boat Race, also becoming the oldest winner with his University of Cambridge crew-mates.

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Captain Tom Moore inspired a nation during the lockdown. Photo: Getty Images

On the weekend when the British Rowing Masters Championships – cancelled due to the lockdown – were due to have taken place, Cracknell, established on an ergo on the small balcony in his flat, took more than two minutes off the British indoor rowing marathon record for the 40 to 49 age group, clocking 2 hours 30min 37sec. In so doing he raised awareness and funds for Headway, the brain injury association. Sporting endeavour during lockdown has taken innumerable other forms as would-be participants have striven towards activity like so many shoots seeking the sun. German triathlete Lasse Lührs replicating swimming by lying on boards held up by beer crates, his arms working pulleys. Hungarian canoeist Eda Zsofia Szabo kneeling on a row of three chairs in order to practice her stroke. New Zealand’s national javelin record holder Tori Peeters kept in shape by pushing a pick-up truck containing, among other things, cattle. One presumes she took off the handbrake just to make it nice and easy. In amongst the plethora of well-meaning fitness challenge videos posted by leading sportsmen and women, Australian tennis player Nick Kyrgios – it would be him – sent out a satirical post that bucked the trend. “Since all the tennis tour has become a fitness challenge, I’ll show you my fitness programme,” Kyrgios says as he settles himself in front of a video game. “So what I am going to do is go to my chair… “I just want to make sure that you are completely bent 90-degrees. Make sure your legs are doing absolutely nothing. Just sit back on the chair, making sure your body’s doing absolutely nothing. You want to do six to nine hours, so you’ll really feel the burn…” Kyrgios’ sardonic take on the earnestness of much social media posting is in keeping with his own risky but essentially honest

way of proceeding in life. The same sense of fun displayed by the eccentric but talented Aussie has been widely evident during the pandemic. Early in the Italian coronavirus lockdown, there was footage on social media of two young men several floors up in a block of flats leaning out of adjacent windows and batting a ball back and forth to each other. On and on it went, a little miracle of adroit insouciance. Since then innumerable other instances of indoor amusement and endeavour have surfaced on Twitter, Facebook and other platforms. Given the widespread early lockdown neurosis regarding the purchase of toilet rolls, it was perhaps inevitable that this most basic of items should soon be re-purposed into sporting equipment. A series of posts featuring the Toilet Roll Challenge – essentially, playing keepie-uppie with a toilet roll as if it were a football – were soon manifesting themselves. An object of angst had become an item of play. Typical human behaviour… Cue indoor volleyball, using a balloon. Or indoor curling – with circles marked on the kitchen floor. Or human skittles… For the vast majority, the object of the exercise has been, simply, the exercise. Personally, I can vouch for the fact that my son and elder daughter, living respectively in east and west London, have been running regularly and synchronising static cycling at a particular time in the evenings. Time allows – and so many have been using that time to healthy effect. World Athletics, meanwhile, has announced plans for a new campaign to support those who have discovered the sport in lockdown, reacting to research indicating that exercise has increased by 88 per cent, with running and walking topping the lists… COVID-19. It’s disaster. It’s triumph.

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