Just six months after the Tokyo Summer Olympics, it is Beijing’s turn to welcome the best athletes in the world for the Winter Games, which are also pandemic. How will Japan’s experience help China’s?
“Strangely, the Tokyo Games were an experience for me that was both completely crazy and much calmer than what I expected,” explains Laurence Vincent-Lapointe, who was a double medalist in canoeing there. “Completely crazy” due, of course, to the health rules that have turned the lives of athletes upside down and its own incredible qualification process, but not only for that. “Just having the right to go to a competition of this magnitude in the midst of a global pandemic was crazy. »
But “calmer”, too, continues the 29-year-old athlete, because once she arrived in Japan, she was able to fully concentrate on her preparation for the decisive moments without having to worry too much about the public, who did not It was not admitted, his relatives and friends, who were not authorized to make the trip, or the usual animation in the Olympic villages, subject, this time, to strict health rules. “My parents, I love them. I would have liked to have had them with me during the Games. But I really appreciated the calm that came with not having spectators. Not to be surrounded by athletes who would have taken the opportunity, after the end of their competitions, to party together. »
There were great fears, before the start of the Tokyo Games, that the periods of confinement at home, the constant upheaval of training conditions and the absence of competition would harm the level of performance of the athletes, recalls François Bieuzen, physiologist at the National Institute of Sport of Quebec (INS). However, Tokyo was ultimately not the scene of “cheap performances. We were treated to real Olympic Games, with a very high level of performance despite the truncated preparation.
Expected performance
Athletes seem to have taken advantage of the pandemic in particular to heal their injuries and focus on their preparation, rather than running from one competition to another around the world.
Flexibility and adaptability have become cardinal virtues, explains François Bieuzen. The wide variation in sanitary rules from one place to another made it possible to realize that there could be different ways of preparing for a major sporting event.
Since then, and by force of circumstance, athletes and support personnel have become more and more skilled with equipment and new technologies for supervision and remote training. “I expect the level of performance to be as high in Beijing as in Tokyo,” says the expert, who will notably be in charge of the short track speed skating team.
“The resilience in the face of uncertainty and the ability to adapt of the athletes who did well in Japan were apparently greater than we thought”, observes in turn Amélie Soulard, sports psychologist and specialist in mental preparation at the ‘INS. But others had it harder. “In some cases, the Tokyo Games were their first major competition in months, whereas the competition context is normally also part of Olympic preparation. »
These poor performances in Tokyo were of course a great disappointment for these athletes, but also a new source of stress, because their funding is largely dependent on their results on the international scene. Fortunately, says the expert, sports federations and granting agencies in Canada, like Own the Podium, have promised to take the circumstances into account.
At the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC), it was necessary to find a way to prepare for the Games in Tokyo and Beijing in parallel, starting each time by assuming that the health and operational constraints would be as strict as possible, “even if it means adapting along the way as information came in,” says its chief athletic officer, Eric Myles.
Smaller, but more complicated
On paper, the next Winter Games, to be held from February 4 to 20 in Beijing, may seem relatively modest compared to the Tokyo Summer Games, with 211 Canadian athletes out of a total of 2,800 from 91 delegations, against 383 Canadians out of more than 11,000 athletes from 206 delegations in Japan. But these Beijing Games will be spread over three sites and will be held in the midst of a wave of a particularly contagious variant of COVID-19 in a country with particularly strict health rules.
In interview at Duty ten days ago, Eric Myles wanted to be reassuring. The most difficult thing for athletes is not to be infected before they can enter the health bubble at the Beijing Games. “Once in the bubble, they will be in one of the safest places in the world. »
At the time of our interview, the Chinese authorities had not yet raised the sensitivity thresholds of their COVID tests in order to calm the growing concern of finding themselves in front of a flood of false positive tests which would force the isolation of athletes. However, the COC leader said he was convinced that common sense and the best interests of the athletes would ultimately prevail during the Games. “But we take the situation very seriously and we are monitoring it very closely. »
In a press briefing this week, the Quebec mogul ski champion, Mikaël Kingsbury, said he felt additional stress and kept as far away as possible from anyone who risked transmitting the evil virus to him. “But once on the mountain, you go back to normal. »
Keep Zen
Athletes and their support staff have spent a lot of time in recent weeks managing all the health requirements imposed by the organizers of the Games, says François Bieuzen, who expects the Chinese authorities to ensure a extremely rigorous application. “I don’t think we’ll be allowed to step aside more than once,” says the physiologist, who has gone, in recent weeks, like several others, to the point of isolating himself from his wife and her children to reduce the risk of contracting COVID.
The diplomatic tensions of recent years between Canada and China do not improve things, reports Amélie Soulard. “The athletes are afraid of finding themselves in a situation where it would be the Chinese government that would have to decide on their fate. »
To avoid losing their minds or adding even more pressure to themselves than they already have, athletes should focus as much as possible on the only factors they can control, advises Laurence Vincent-Lapointe, who knows some a ray on the subject. Those who have prepared conscientiously should have confidence in their ability to deliver the performance they are capable of, despite almost two years of upside down, she said. And for the moments of doubt, depression or anxiety, they can find someone they can trust, in another sport if necessary, capable of changing their minds, reassuring them and comforting them. For her, in Tokyo, it was the kayaker Andréanne Langlois. “We helped each other to be more zen. »
Time for the balance sheets
An assessment will be made later of these two Olympic Games held in the midst of a pandemic, assures Eric Myles. “It would be irresponsible not to give yourself the time to come back to all this and ask yourself what should be done better next time. He says he is already proud, in particular, of the efforts that have been made to take into account the particular reality of Canadian female athletes, such as Laurence Vincent-Lapointe, Mandy Bujold and Kim Gaucher. “We defended strong, clear positions, in our colors, as Canadians. »
It will be necessary to take the measure of the damage inflicted by the pandemic on the practice of sport among young people and find means of recovery. “We are living through a major crisis. We need to see young people get moving again. »
The entire international Olympic movement will also have to continue to ask itself what it could have and should have done differently, Eric Myles readily admits. However, the latter invites us not to judge it too harshly, in particular in terms of financial, social and environmental acceptability, before the holding of the next Games in Paris (summer 2024), Milan (winter 2026) or Los Angeles (summer 2028). ). “An Olympic cycle is seven years. The first Games resulting from the new rules of attribution are coming. I can’t wait to see people discover them. »