Fighting an invisible opponent

COVID-19 has already disrupted the world sports calendar.
Sports leagues all over the world are already at a standstill. Major events have already been postponed. And tournaments have been called off.
Athletes — as healthy and as vigorous as they are — have not been spared from the new coronavirus.
In the NBA alone, reports say that 14 members of the league were found positive for COVID-19 including superstar Kevin Durant of the Brooklyn Nets, Marcus Smart of the Boston Celtics, Christian Wood of the Detroit Pistons, Donovan Mitchell of the Utah Jazz and his teammate Rudy Gobert, the first pro basketball player to have been diagnosed with the virus.
The names of the rest of the infected NBA players and staff were not yet released to the public.
The Gobert case, in fact, became the catalyst for other leagues to also put their season to a pause.
However, the biggest sports spectacle this year — the 2020 Tokyo Olympics — is pushing through with its opening schedule on July 24.
Japanese organizers have been firm in their decision to hold the quadrennial games as planned.
Olympic leaders are hoping that the COVID-19 pandemic would have subsided in four months time and we would have defeated the unseen enemy.
Although International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach is considering different scenarios for the Olympic Games, the current status is still a “GO”.
“For us, (postponement) would not be responsible now and it would be premature to start speculation or make a decision at a time when we do not have any recommendation from the task force,” Bach said.
However, some sports leaders — including those from England, Canada and the United States — are asking the Tokyo Olympic organizers and the IOC to reconsider for the sake of the athletes.
Most of the Olympic qualifying events have already been cancelled and most of the world’s athletes are now probably training in quarantine.
As of today, no one can assure the safety of the athletes and their protection from COVID-19.
It will not be certain if countries will send their athletes to Tokyo if the Olympics will push through in July and some athletes may not be in their best shape going to the Games.
Even the arrival of the Olympic flame from Greece to Japan last Friday — which was supposed to be a grand event — was scaled down by organizers with only few spectators.
On the other hand, I understand where Japan is sitting and why it has not moved the games.
The Japanese said they are “fully committed” to hold the games in July. A lot of money have already been spent and they don’t want 1940 to happen again.
The 1940 Summer Olympics was supposed to be held in Tokyo from September 21 to October 6 but was cancelled due to the outbreak of World War II.
Since the first modern Olympics in Athens in 1896, the only reason that the Olympic Games has been cancelled is because of the world wars.
The 1916 Olympics which was slated for Berlin was also called off.
During the 2004 Games in Athens, there were the threats of the SARS virus and during the 2016 Games in Rio, there were threats of the Zika virus. But both events went through as scheduled.
But COVID-19 is nothing like SARS and Zika combined.
We are facing an invisible enemy with the power to wipe out a significant percentage of humanity.
And if we cannot find ways to defeat this virus in the next three or four weeks, I fear that its next casualty is “Citius, Altius, Fortius”.