chrisb12 wrote:
The race should happen, the athletes should get their money, but when some athletes can not get there due to the shit the world is going through, a world champion should not be crowned. This should just be a race.
So many of the athletes already on that start list are voicing it is unfair, how can ppl here not see that?
It will be the world championships of people who can make it.
In regular years there are kids say in Rwanda or Laos or Sri Lanka who may have the genetics to be 30 min 10k runners off swimming and biking with the top ITU guns but they actually never had a chance to learn how to swim or ride a bike in the first place. The best downhill skier may be from Jamaica or Nigeria but we don't know because those kids never get a chance at that sport. How many black kids from the USA could make the US swim team if they have access to the sport
So being a world champion is all about competing and beating those who have the opportunity to show up and access to the sport. This year covid puts another layer on the access problem, but it is always there. We just don't notice in the developed world. The winter Olympics for most of the world is regarded as some freak side show for approximately 15 countries who do weird sports that no one does. So it's just perspective of who gets to compete or not.
I can get on a flight tomorrow from Canada to Hamburg and go race with zero quarantine in Germany. I have to just quarantine when I get back. From what I gather EU is allowing the internal travel and a list of other countries. If your country did not make the EU cut you don't get to compete for world's this year. It's tough luck what country you are from but tell that to the kid from Rwanda who would like to try our sport but there are no decent pools for her to learn. It's roughly the same problem but for her it's permanent. For some countries whose athletes cannot travel it's just a temporary annoyance this year only.