COVID-19 restrictions have severely affected Australia's famed love of sports, from the most local of small country competitions right up to our Olympic representatives.
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The Australian Sports Foundation (ASF) is now trying to fathom just how deeply our sporting communities have been disadvantaged, by conducting a nation-wide survey of clubs aimed at understanding the financial, mental and physical health impacts on athletes, and the support they now require.
Chris Bond won a gold medal on debut at the London Paralympics leading the Australian wheelchair rugby team, an effort repeated in 2014 at the Wheelchair Rugby World Championship in Denmark.
Losing his left hand, right fingers and legs below the knees to a bacterial infection at 19, he's become one of the best wheelchair rugby players in the world. He was preparing to go to the Tokyo Games this year.
Mr Bond says that's on hold now.
"Leading into 2020 we're were pretty excited, myself and my team, going to my third Paralympic Games; my friends and family bought tickets," Mr Bond says.
"You crack over to January, it's a new Paralympic year; you spend three years training for it. Really excited. And we did manage to get an international competition over in the UK in February, before it hit off in Australia, and we're watching the news over there, going, 'Oh, this is pretty bad, hope it doesn't get to down to Australia.' And sure enough, next month, it did."
For elite athletes like Chris, new adaptive training sessions began as gyms closed, while speaking engagements and sponsorships were lost. Taking time off work to prepare cost him income.
But he wants to see the bigger picture: what has happened to sport across the country?
Will people still be supportive of country sports and clubs and community? Will people stay in the habit of staying at home or doing whatever? It's a big unknown
- Andrew Bodman, Skipton FNC
"We're just trying to work out what the national impact is for athletes, so we can advocate, do something about it and raise awareness, and potentially some funds, to help athletes into next year," he says.
"Earlier in the year when COVID first started, it was around May or June, we put together a report. It was of 4500 community clubs or something like that, so a pretty good snapshot of Australian grassroots clubs, and our reports showed that over 90 per cent of them lost money or intended to lose money, with a quarter of them facing insolvency and shutting shop. A lot of them have utility bills, etcetera to pay, with no income coming in.
"There's about close to 50 per cent decline in volunteers, which as we know are the lifeblood of community grassroots support, because people are just too scared to get involved in things. And we estimated about $1.2 billion is needed to recover from this, from a community club point of view nationally. So this is the kind of thing we need, we want to find out, from athletes."
Andrew Bodman is the president of Skipton Football Netball Club.
He says for a country sports club, COVID has brought challenges which reach far beyond the obvious cancellation and limitation of senior and junior matches and training, and the future is uncertain.
"We're very grateful that the stars aligned that we could have those few junior games," Mr Bodman told The Courier.
"I think it was a great reset for the kids, to give them some focus between the two lockdowns. It was great for their mental health and connections and, and the general wellbeing of the kids.
"But as far as the actual effects on the club, that remains to be seen. Putting aside there being no competition, there's been no effect thus far. We will only know that when we see people return to what is supposedly normal. And if we're allowed to attend to what is supposedly normal.
"Will people still be supportive of country sports and clubs and community? Will people stay in the habit of staying at home or doing whatever? It's a big unknown."
Andrew Bodman says Skipton FNC has tried to keep in touch with their player lists much as possible, saying some players will find it a relief to return to social activity, while others will find it harder to return, whether it is because they have found work further away, or their work environment has changed; whether they will find the risk of injuries or pressures from bosses to work more will alter their minds.
"I think in general people will be looking to get back to whatever they can," Mr Bodman says.
"But if a few drop away because they got out of the habit or whatever, well, that could be damaging in the end."
He says clubs in the smaller country leagues of the Wimmera and the Mallee have already been decimated by population drift to the bigger towns like Ballarat.
"How COVID will affect those clubs? Look, there are so many unknowns. If we're allowed to compete but are not allowed to have social rooms and the social interaction, which is the whole point, that could be damaging in itself. But we don't know where we'll be, we would hope would be into a vaccination program and, and there'd be some confidence returning and things would be fairly relaxed, comparatively. there are so many things up in the air."
Chris Bond says the next step for the ASF is to get their 15-minute survey on the impact of COVID in front of as many sportspeople as possible.The survey asks questions designed to understand the impact of the pandemic on funding, as well as on physical and mental health, families and careers.
"We want to look at the future for athletes, from emerging up to international like myself: how their year's been, how they've it been impacted financially, and also their health into this year, so then we can pull together a national report," he says.
This has had a huge mental impact, definitely. I think especially for team sports, like myself, we're so used to being with your teammates all the time face-to-face and that bonding with with your teammates; they are your support network, even if it's not written anywhere, because they're the ones you lean on. You're doing it all together, into battle.
"In this survey, we want to get a broad range of sports and athletes, because some sports have been quite well-funded and supporting their athletes, other sports not so much. So we want to hear from from everyone."