Running News Daily

Canadian athletes have been struggling to find competition as they try to qualify for Tokyo

In early January, when COVID-19 numbers were climbing again, and Ontario had just hunkered down in another stay-at-home order, Melissa Bishop-Nriagu, husband Osi and their daughter Corinne, moved from Windsor, Ont., to Victoria.

With her Olympic participation on the line, the west coast city offered fairer weather for training and fewer COVID-19 restrictions.

Still, the world 800-meter silver medallist faces an uphill battle in securing a spot on the Tokyo Olympic team. Bishop-Nriagu, who was fourth at the 2016 Rio Olympics, should be among Canada's top medal hopes on the track in Tokyo — if she can just get there.

"It is [brutal]," said Bishop-Nriagu. "And even more brutal given the pandemic. . . Bottom line: I need races. And I need them to be fast."

Track and field isn't the only sport scrambling to qualify amid Canada's COVID-19 protocols. Canada promised to send perhaps the strongest men's basketball team to Tokyo last year, when the Olympics were originally supposed to take place. Now, the compacted NBA season conflicts with the Olympic qualifying tournament in June in Victoria.

Canada's boxing team is in quarantine less than three months from a qualifying event in Argentina after a team member tested positive for the coronavirus earlier this week.

Athletics Canada had hoped to send a team of 60-plus athletes to Tokyo, but just 24 have achieved qualifying standards, largely due to the inability to compete.

Before the pandemic, World Athletics had implemented new qualifying rules that require athletes to either achieve one very difficult standard — a fast time, a long throw, etc. — to earn an automatic berth, or be ranked in the top 48 in a complicated points system calculated over an athlete's five best major competitions.

Athletics Canada is lobbying for an edit to the stringent qualifying rules to allow for a more even playing field in Tokyo.

"It's just so unfair for Canadians at the moment, it's terrible," said Simon Nathan, Athletics Canada's high performance director. "The worry is: if I don't travel, then I can't qualify. If I do travel, there are places that are more risky [for the pandemic] than Canada. And then I come home and have to sit on my bum, literally not allowed to do anything for two weeks while my rivals are still training, they're still competing.

"So it's stress coming from every direction."

The deadline to register an athlete in any sport for the Tokyo Olympics is July 5, which is less than five months away. And the pandemic is severely impeding international and domestic competitions that ultimately determine the expected 400 to 40 athletes representing Canada in Tokyo.

"We're going to see a lot of last-minute qualification around Tokyo," Canadian Olympic Committee chief sport officer Eric Myles said.

"There will be hard stories, heartbreaking stories for sure. There are so many moving parts. We are trying as much as possible to prevent unfairness issues, but it's not simple. The virus is not making it simple."

Canada as a country has gained 99 event entries into Tokyo, which represents 239 athletes, according to Myles.

Of Canada's 35 national summer sport organizations, 28 are still in the process of choosing their Olympic athletes.

"The challenges are massive," said Own The Podium summer sport director Mark Hahto.

"It stems primarily from the cancellations, the uncertainties, the postponements of so many events on the summer calendar."