New Zealand athletes are pressing on with their preparation for the Tokyo Summer Olympics, despite ongoing doubts over the event due to Covid-19.
Lewis Clareburt reacts to winning a bronze medal at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. Photo: © Photosport Ltd 2018 www.photosport.nz
The games - originally meant to be held last year - were postponed due to the pandemic.
But today International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach said the postponed Olympic Games will take place in July/August despite surging coronavirus cases in Tokyo.
Because there was doubt, hopeful Olympians were also seeing funding opportunities dry up.
For Olympic swimming medal hopeful Lewis Clareburt, any cancellation would be hugely disappointing.
The 21-year-old, who won bronze in the men's 400 metre individual medley at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, hopes Tokyo will end up going ahead.
"As an athlete, you know, you can't really say that 'oh I'm just not going to train because I don't think it's going ahead', but you know they [organisers] are saying it's going ahead this year and I'm reasonably confident that it will go ahead," he said.
But with the doubt surrounding the event, Clareburt admitted motivation was difficult.
"It's been pretty difficult to motivate yourself throughout the year and I was lucky for me at the end of last year, I got to go away and do an international competition, which most people didn't get to do," he said.
"That definitely helped with the motivating factor and getting out of your home training program and spicing things up a little bit, but yeah, it definitely took a bit of a toll on me," Clareburt said.
Before today's confirmation that the games will go ahead, Swimming New Zealand's targeted athlete and coach programme manager Gary Francis said everyone was prepared for a possible cancellation.
"It would be a naive person to say that 'oh no everybody is so fully focused on the games, they're not even considering it [cancellation]'," Francis said.
"I think for every one of the athletes and coaches and anybody involved, it is something that's there all the time, but while there is the hope that it's on, and while we hear that the plan is still for it to go, they will carry on preparing for it."
New Zealand sprinter Joseph Millar is unsure if he could hang around for the 2024 Olympics. Photo: PHOTOSPORT
Francis said Covid has also meant funding usually available to him during Olympic years has been withdrawn.
"There are extra funding resources that are made available to you to help athletes gain that little extra 1 percent that make that difference between a semifinal and a final or a final and a medal," he said.
"Those funds are almost impossible for us to access right now because they just aren't there."
One of the country's top male sprinters, Joseph Millar, was also pressing on with training.
The 28-year-old said before today's announcement, if the games were cancelled it would be devastating.
"[It would be] hugely gutting, it would be a big ask to go I think another three years of effort to try and not only be present for the next one but be fighting fit," he said.
Millar said in his chosen sport, career spans can be short.
"For a sprinter you sort of have a few years there where you are really at your best. Usually between the ages of 24 to 28 is when you're able to run the fastest times that you will do and I'm 28 at the moment," he said.
Millar said if the Tokyo games do end up being cancelled, it would be a big ask for him to try for the 2024 games.
