The outbreak of the coronavirus has disrupted China’s preparations for the Tokyo Olympics, barring athletes from overseas-based competitions and forcing sports authorities into makeshift arrangements five months before the Games.
At home, many of China’s Olympic hopefuls are confined to closed training bases, unable to venture abroad due to entry restrictions placed by countries to contain the virus that has killed more than 2,500 people in China.
Overseas, a slew of China’s national teams remains in hastily arranged training camps scattered across the globe, unable to return home for fear of being swept up in virus-related travel restrictions.
In a country that has long equated Olympic performance with national strength, the crisis has put sports authorities on a war footing as they scramble to prepare a competitive delegation for Tokyo.
Dr Jinming Zheng, the lecturer in Sport Management and Policy at Northumbria University, explains how virus outbreak affects Team China’s preparations for the Tokyo Olympics.
“The beauty of sport resizing the uncertainty as long as athletes do their best to overcome all the difficulties and do their best during the performance of the competition. I hope the national team and all the Chinese athletes can present very motivational performances, which can further inspire not only the nation, but also the world.”
How Team China performed and prepared already?
The General Administration of Sports (GAS), China’s sports ministry, has implemented emergency measures to protect the country’s home-based athletes, forbidding them from transferring between training facilities.
The restrictions extend to coaches and support staff as well as ancillary workers such as cooks, cleaners and drug testers at national and provincial centers.
The country’s most decorated Olympic swimmer Sun Yang is confined to his home-town pool at the Zhejiang College of Sports in Hangzhou, in eastern China, while national teammates train in Beijing.
“There is a general consensus that the restrictive policy in some countries will raise the difficulty level of Chinese teams, and limit or even stifle Team China’s participation performance and qualification opportunities,” Dr Jinming Zheng told the reporter.
China’s gymnastics team, which claimed a silver and four bronze medals at the Rio Olympics four years ago, was forced to miss a World Cup meeting in Melbourne over the weekend that carried Olympic qualifying points for individual events.
The athletes were unable to enter Australia due to government restrictions on foreign nationals traveling from China.
Dr. Zheng believes it would be a very intensive schedule for qualifiers every four years period during Olympics cycle, and so far, Team China has already secured tickets in a wide range of sports, but there is some negative consequence for women’s football team.
China’s national women’s football team arrived in Australia for an Olympic qualifying tournament just before the restrictions were implemented at the beginning of the month, but the players had to spend nearly two weeks quarantined in a Brisbane hotel.
They have remained in Australia to prepare for the “home” leg of their Olympic playoff against South Korea, which was scheduled for Sydney on March 11 to avoid further travel complications.
The country’s powerful table tennis, badminton and boxing teams have all been given special dispensation by sports authorities to continue training outside of China.
The table tennis team, featuring men’s Olympic singles champion Ma Long and world number one Xu Xin, canceled a training camp at home in the southern island province of Hainan and has instead set up a new base in Doha, Qatar.
The Chinese boxing team, which claimed four medals at Rio, has also found sanctuary in the Middle East, where they are holding training camps in Jordan and the United Arab Emirates in coming weeks.
“However, from the mental momentum point of view, I suppose Team China are more eager to pursue success. For instance, Iraq have appeared once in the FIFA World Cup which was in 1986 during the Iran-Iraq war, although Team Iraq didn’t even have their own home stadiums and had to go abroad for all the qualification matches, they were also motivated and successfully securing the tickets to Moscow at the 1980 Summer Olympics.”
Olympic qualifications hit by the coronavirus epidemic
China’s 2022 World Cup qualifiers against Maldives at home and Guam away next month will be moved to Buriram, Thailand. The game will be played behind closed doors, as requested by the Thai government.
The Chinese women’s national team will play the home leg of their Olympic qualification playoff against South Korea in Sydney next month.
The International Olympic Committee announced Jordan as hosts of the boxing qualifiers for Asia and Oceania after an event in Wuhan was canceled. It will now take place in Amman from March 3 to 11.
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