Elaine Thompson-Herah has expressed disappointment over the reported postponement of the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan, over the coronavirus pandemic.
However, the 27-year-old Olympic champion has embraced the reality of the situation, recognizing that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) might have had little choice in arriving at their position.
“I was so looking forward to this year’s Olympics Tokyo 2020. We all are facing this global pandemic but we as athletes still have to keep training no matter what,” she said.
“We can just only hope for the best. Delay Is Not Denial.”
At the 2016 Rio Olympics, Thompson-Herah won the 100m and 200m titles becoming the first woman since Florence Griffith-Joyner in 1988 to accomplish that feat. Since then she has not had much fortune at global championships.
After going into the World Championships in London in 2017 with the fastest time world in the 100m (10.71) and was impressive through the rounds, she finished a disappointing fifth.
The Jamaican team doctor Kevin Jones revealed afterwards that the 2015 200m silver medallist had eaten something that made her unwell, and which resulted in her throwing up several times before the start of the finals won by American Tori Bowie.
In Doha in 2019, she also went into the World Championships with the joint fastest time in the world (10.73) with the eventual gold medallist Shelly-Ann Fraser Pryce. However, the flare-up of a longstanding Achilles-related injury saw her finish fourth in the 100m. The injury also forced her to withdraw from the 200m.
The 2020 Olympics would have been an opportunity for her to find redemption and live up to the immense potential that made her the fastest woman in the world in 2016. Nevertheless, 2020 was always going to be a challenge with the outbreak of the coronavirus causing the cancellation of the Grenada Invitational that was set for April 4.
She had planned to open her season there.
However, after weeks of insisting that the Olympics would go as planned, the IOC seemed to have been forced to backtrack after Canada and Australia stated publicly that they would withdraw from the Olympic Games if they were not postponed until 2021.
The USA Track and Field Association and Swimming Associations have also called on the IOC to postpone the Games set for July 24-August 8, 2020.
World Athletics chief Lord Sebastian Coe has also wavered and said Monday that track and field’s governing body would be willing to move the 2021 World Championships set for Eugene, Oregon to accommodate the rescheduled Olympic Games.
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