Gold-medal judgment

Opinion

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 23/03/2020 (2021 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Our athletes won’t be winning any medals in rowing, swimming or track and field this summer, but the Canadian Olympic Committee can proudly stand on top of the podium when it comes to moxie, courage and leadership.

At a time when some in the sports world are using their platform to send a dangerous message to the public regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, the COC fired a much-needed shot across the bow in demanding a postponement to the 2020 Games and refusing to send any athletes to Tokyo if they foolishly proceed.

That created an immediate snowball effect, with other countries following suit and leaving the stubborn, greedy International Olympic Committee with no choice but to put people over profit and pull the plug.

“Doing the right thing can hurt like hell,” Ghislaine Landry, the captain of the Canadian women’s rugby sevens team, said on her Twitter account late Sunday night. Her squad won a bronze medal at the 2016 games in Rio.

Indeed, this is going to sting for all those who have been training for the past four years for a moment that now may never come. Your heart breaks for them, but we are all being called on to make sacrifices, some naturally much bigger and painful than others, to ease the burden on those fighting the virus on the front lines.

Sports has never been smaller or more insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

Despite its relatively small population on the global stage, Canada has always had a big voice when it comes to international athletics. One just has to look at the prominence of Ontario’s Dick Pound, the longtime, deeply-respected IOC member who likely ruffled plenty of feathers in the organization Monday by speaking publicly on the looming one-year postponement.

That came less than 24 hours after the IOC embarrassingly blew its chance to set a proper example, deferring a final decision for another four weeks.

There are those who will argue the Olympics would be the welcome distraction we all need in these scary, uncertain times, but allowing the Games to go on would do irreparable harm, not only to all the competitors and spectators but everyone watching around the world who would be further tricked into thinking it’s business as usual.

It’s that attitude that is already getting people killed, and will lead to scores more deaths around the world the longer it continues.

An eye-opening report in the New York Times this past weekend put it in the simplest, starkest terms possible. Essentially, it said that if it were possible to wave a magic wand and make everyone freeze in place for the next 14 days, at least two metres apart, “the whole epidemic would sputter to a halt.”

And yet, there are blowhards out there like Ultimate Fighting Championship president Dana White, who wants to continue putting on shows — in empty venues, although only because he doesn’t have any choice — and slammed critics by saying “the weakest, wimpiest people on earth cover the biggest, baddest sport on earth.”

That kind of rhetoric isn’t just flat-out wrong, but borderline criminal at this stage.

Fellow carnival barker Vince McMahon of World Wrestling Entertainment — the billionaire owner who once coldly continued a live pay-per-view event after Canadian wrestler Owen Hart fell to his death in the ring — is also still producing his weekly television shows even though no fans are being allowed in the buildings.

Unfortunately, those who bow at the alter of White’s bare-fisted brutality and McMahon’s scripted “sports entertainment” tend to be young men and women who have a false sense of invincibility.

Just look at the disturbing images coming out of Florida late last week, where selfish spring-breakers were bumping and grinding on packed beaches while body bags were filling up in hard-hit regions such as Italy. Many believe the U.S. is about less than two weeks from a similar crisis.

When it first hit our radar a few weeks ago, it was the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions who were believed to be most at risk, but with more than 370,000 diagnosed cases and 16,000 deaths now documented in 195 different countries and territories, it appears children and young adults are much more susceptible than experts initially believed.

The calls from doctors and politicians to stay at home and practise social distancing and self-quarantining are getting louder and more desperate by the day. States of emergencies are being declared, and police are even threatening to arrest those who fail to comply.

Unfortunately, those pleas have fallen on deaf ears in some quarters. And it doesn’t help when people like White are leading the YOLO movement (that’s “you only live once,” for the uninitiated), although he has plenty of company, sadly.

“My honest opinion is, it’s our choice if we commit to social distancing or not. I’m not worried about what the next person does. I’m going to go wherever I can. I love ppl are living for the moment. The future isn’t promised. Live in the box if you want. Your choice,” former Blue Bomber cornerback Maurice Leggett spouted off on Twitter the other day.

Naturally, he received plenty of blowback for his comments, which he repeatedly doubled-down on.

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Now, more than ever, we need current and former athletes to use their considerable clout to urge people to take this pandemic seriously and follow all public-health guidelines. And it has to go beyond the “wash your hands and stay strong” missives various competitors have put out so far.

The Canadian Olympic Committee has taken a powerful step in that direction, one that seems to have got the attention of many around the world. Hopefully their message begins to spread as quickly as coronavirus has.

As Landry so eloquently wrote on her account, “This is so much bigger than sport, and so much bigger than us. Lives are being lost. Humanity is in crisis.”

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter:: @mikemcintyrewpg

Mike McIntyre
Sports columnist

Mike McIntyre grew up wanting to be a professional wrestler. But when that dream fizzled, he put all his brawn into becoming a professional writer.

   Read full biography