Likely impact of Covid-19 on future sporting year

A month or more of staying inside our homes with many limitations around, No sporting actions to follow, no live scores to check , no adrenaline surge in anticipation of much awaited matches, No midnight Football games, no topic to fight with friends like sports experts.

Its been a world without any sports and with strict lockdowns in almost all the countries its hard time for a sportsperson .They are not used to being indoors, deprived from training and no competitions to focus on. Dealing with long term impact of Covid-19 is even a bigger challenge.

The Vaccination or cure of this virus has some time from now but many federations are discussing about resuming the sporting season in couple of months from now. So, let’s take a look at what challenges this sports will face.I believe different sports will face different consequences.

·       Individual sports such as golf , shooting and athletics will have the least impact while sports like Gymnastics need to follow precautions as the same apparatus are touched by the Gymnast and they should sanitize before and after that routine. Whether the Grip of gymnast will be affected during the routine is yet to be known.

• ·       Team sports such as cricket and football have more threat because a team cannot play without practicing together. A group of 15s and 20s is dangerous so practice needs to start with a group of 3.
  

Indian Pacer Bhuvanshwar Kumar said that fast bowlers will fear to use saliva to shine the bowl which is necessary to swing the bowl.

Regarding Basketball which is highly physical sports is unlikely to began anytime soon as USA is the worst hit country by this pandemic, while  many football federations such as Spanish league and English league are thinking of resuming the season in month of June behind close doors.

·       But what if you are a wrestler or a boxer where the physical contact is unavoidable. Wrestlers even need spare partners to train with and so these sports will be the last to resume.

Talking about international star sportsperson they are fearful and unsure about the near future. Star Spaniard Rafa nadal says he is pessimist about him returning to competitions since the players need to constantly travel, stay in different hotels. Even if the matches are played behind closed doors you need lots of people involved organizing such tournaments.

So right now all we can do is wait and watch regarding resumption of our favorite sports  and hope this dark clouds raised due to the Pandemic go away soon and we Sports lovers can once again experience the thrilling encounters and enjoy the game.

                                                                  RUGVED JOSHI