USA Swimming asks for 2020 Olympics to be postponed 1 year to protect "mental health and wellness" of athletes

It’s inevitable that the Olympics need to be postponed a year

Bad news for swimming. Good news for the cannabis industry.

This is an embarrassment. The pussification of America.

I really don't like this letter. I think the Olympics will be postponed but I don't see why they couldn't be later in the year and I definitely don't think a decision needs to be made now.

Postponing the Olympics because coronavirus it is taking it's toll on "athletic preparations" is ridiculous and selfish in my mind. There are much bigger concerns for the world right now.

The Olympics is every 4 years so it is different than baseball but they're highly unlikely to cancel the entire baseball season because athletes miss training now.

The letter goes on and imply the games need to be postpoined because there may not be a "level playing field for all". That is an extremely poor reason to cancel the Olympics. But also we're less than 2 weeks into this thing in terms of a shtudown in the US and we don't know what effect on a "level playing field" it will have. Most of the Western World is shut down right now so that actually sort of levels the playing field.

But when this thing was just in China I didn't hear them calling for a shut down. That was unfair for the Chinese.

Then it says, "Our athletes are under tremendous pressure, stress and anxiety, and their mental health and wellness should be among the highest priorities."

Actually I would say the well being of the nation and world should be the highest priorities of all. Everyone is under a tremendous amount of stress and anxiety. People are losing their jobs, people are dying and the mental well being of a bunch of fit athletes training for the Olympics should be amongst the highest priorities.

The most valid reason to not have an Olympics is because they can not safely be held. If athletes have to go into them undertrained I personally am fine with that, but I can see why others would want them postponed for that reason. But right now essentially saying, the Olympics have to be postponed because we may not be able to train properly too me comes across as ridiculously selfish.

Now maybe you think I'm being selfish by actually believing we don't need to postpone them now, but that is my belief although I think i'm going to lose out on this one. Regardless I don't like the reasons cited in this letter.

Most people are essentially saying "We can't have the Olympics because it's not safe" even though they are 4 months out. That is a much better reason than the mental well being of a bunch of athletes whose training has been impacted.

Imagine how the Russians feel: almost no covid19 and not allowed to compete!

I'm fine with them being postponed but their mental health? Please

How can you train effectively during a lockdown?

How can you race with a travel ban?

Why should you compete at sports when people around you are suffering?

1) most athletes can’t train as they did prior to lockdown but they can still exercise

2) you can’t race

3) we hold sports daily when people are suffering and dying throughout the world. Do you realize 60% of world doesn’t have access to a traditional toilet ?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.trtworld.com/life/un-says-2-3b-people-worldwide-live-without-clean-toilet-access-12419/amp

But I think you mean how can we have Olympics if this thing was wiping out people throughout the world and hospitals are overwhelmed. We wouldn’t. We would only hold them if this is became a manageable virus . It Could still be killing a lot of people like a flu. But if it was spreading like it is now obviously we wouldn’t have them.

I just think training being impacted now is it a good reason to cancel Olympics . If this thing is still a pandemic not under control obviously we would cancel. But that is 4 months away .

Level playing field - you realise anti doping programs globally are effectively suspended right?

You don't think level playing field is a good argument when there are literally distance athletes in Europe who by law can't leave their apartments. Meanwhile a counterpart in say rural Kenya can run outdoors to their hearts content and also take as much EPO as they like without fear of being caught. If you don't like the Kenya example switch it out with rural Arizona. USADA have said they are drawing back all testing to skeleton levels. If you're somewhere quiet and a doper this is the best time to be alive.

That doesn't seem fair to me. If Tokyo goes ahead it will be a juiced up joke.

Agree! The letter is self serving and spoken like the truly entitled. My kid is a young swimmer and I don’t stand behind this letter.

The Olympics will be canceled. USA swimming needs to take a seat and refrain from corresponding on the OG during this world wide catastrophe.