WHEN TIMES are tough, making sure the show must go on says a lot about resilience, hope and determination. But not like this.
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Time to cancel the Olympics.
As much as this column extols the magic, the inspiration and the relevance of the Olympic Games, the modern revival is fundamentally about what Pierre de Coubertin himself calls the spirit of sportsmanship. The best indication of this right now is for International Olympic Committee to press stop and re-group. Show some leadership.
Sure the Olympics are in four months' time, yet even an armchair expert could gauge the Games' continuation is complicated and far from fair play.
Perhaps surprisingly, the AFL launched on Thursday night when grassroots matches have been made pending. Who would have thought Richmond superstar Dustin Martin could not pull a crowd? It happened.
Olympic Games are a whole different playing field, pulling together elite contenders from a whole raft of sporting disciplines and nations each with their own governing bodies and professional standards.
The Games are a wonderful melting pot normally worth celebrating but that now seem a confronting disaster. A "perioulous petri dish" is what political science professor Jules Boykoff called it in The New York Times this week.
Ballarat Olympic rowing hopeful Kat Werry told The Courier a fortnight ago she was training and preparing as usual, in Sydney, until further notice. This is exactly what she should be doing.
It should not be up to individual athletes to make a stand. We are all in this together.
Ballarat has an incredible Olympic history. We have even helped host - just venture up to our Olympic memorial on Lake Wendouree, home to 1956 Melbourne Games' rowing.
While it would be gutting for the likes of Werry to possibly miss an Olympic berth, what is unfolding and fast-evolving about the world right now is bigger than the greatest multi-sport showdown on earth. Even if we could all use some mighty cheering up.
Times are weird. So much confusion clouds our community daily, hourly, and this goes the world over.
Times are incredibly worrying. We do not know how long we need to ride this pandemic out, nor the ripples effects that will continue to play out in our lives.
We desperately need decisive action from our leaders, of which sport plays a major role. Stay calm and carry on just does not seem to cut it.
Playing it by ear feels week and self-serving from those at the top.
The Olympic flame handover took place in Panathenaic Stadium, closed to the stadium, on Thursday after the Greek relay portion was cancelled. The flame managed to catch a Boeing 747 charter flight named Tokyo 2020 to Japan seemingly without much immigration concern.
Olympics set a grand stage for sporting heroes to be made. Cancelling Tokyo 2020 will not diminish this but reinforce just how much more we need to stick together.
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