- The 2020
Tokyo Olympics were supposed to be in full swing this week, but the coronavirus pandemic forced the IOC to postpone the games by a year. - Team USA's top athletes had varied reactions to the IOC's decision to delay the Games.
- Insider spoke with six Team USA Olympians — USWNT stars
Tobin Heath and Christen Press, swimmersKatie Ledecky andRyan Murphy , track and field standoutColleen Quigley , and women's basketball iconSue Bird — about how they've coped with the delay.
Weeks before the the coronavirus pandemic forced professional
The legendary WNBA point guard and four-time Olympic gold medalist for Team USA was at home in Seattle when one of the earliest COVID-19 outbreaks ravaged the Life Care Center, a nursing home 20 minutes outside the city.
"It was like end of February when the talk of it started and sadly that care center in Kirkland got hit the hardest," Bird told Insider. "It actually gave me this perspective early on of like, 'Woah, life's gonna be different.'"
As the rest of the country attempted to go on as usual, Bird was already contemplating the far-reaching implications of the blossoming pandemic, thinking ahead especially to Tokyo.
"I had even thought about the Olympics in a conversation with my father," Bird said. "He was like, 'Hey, they might not have the Olympics,' and I was like, 'What, really?' So the seed had already been planted."
The 11-time WNBA all-star and her girlfriend — US Women's National Team superstar Megan Rapinoe — sequestered themselves on the East Coast shortly thereafter and waited for updates.
The games — which were originally scheduled to be in full swing right now — were officially postponed on March 24.
"When the Olympics got delayed versus being canceled, I was kind of relieved," Bird said, adding, "For every athlete in every sport, to have it delayed versus having it canceled is a good thing."
In the weeks athletes would have otherwise been competing for gold, Insider spoke to six of Team USA's biggest names about their reactions to the International Olympic Committee's decision to push the games back, how they're able to stay motivated, and their perspectives on the 2021 games.
"That force of change is a reminder that everything's transient," US Women's National Team star Christen Press told Insider. "And the idea that we know what's going to happen in the future is an illusion."
"I think I needed that reminder."
For some, the postponement brought shock and disappointment
Colleen Quigley was hitting her stride — no pun intended — a few months ahead of the 27-year-old's second trip to the Olympics. A middle-distance runner for USA Track & Field, Quigley specializes in the steeplechase event. She had what she described as a "really good" indoor season in the winter: She broke a previous American record in the indoor 3,000-meter event and picked up two new sponsors. Everything was going right.
"I was feeling really good about my momentum going into an Olympic year," Quigley told Insider. "I was feeling like, 'This is what an Olympic year should feel like!' I'm running fast, I have sponsors I'm really excited about, momentum is growing."
Then, she said, "it all sort of just blew up."
Although Quigley has endured multiple injuries and said she's "no stranger to the disappointment" that comes with missing a major event, digesting the
"I felt that sense of togetherness and that we're all dealing with the disappointment and the challenge together," she said. "It's not just me dealing with an injury and feeling like I'm missing out on something."
Olympic swimmer Ryan Murphy — who won three gold medals at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro — said he found similar comfort in talking to his USA Swimming teammates after news of the postponement broke.
"My phone started ringing at 6 a.m.," Murphy told Insider.
"That whole Tuesday was essentially spent talking on the phone with a lot of my buddies on the national team," he added. "We were kind of like talking through our emotions and it was a total mix. We were all supporting each other because we knew everyone was in a good spot. We knew everyone was ready to go and that the US was set up to have a really good Olympics performance."
Many of Team USA's most famous athletes are fighting anxiety through sport
Swimmer Katie Ledecky, a five-time Olympic gold medalist, described feeling in a "state of limbo" before the IOC decision. She and her teammates were also "scrambling to figure out our training situation" as facilities in the Bay Area began to shut down, Ledecky told Insider.
"A bit of stress had built up over the week or two before that decision was made because we didn't know what was going to happen one way or the other," she said. "Once the decision was made it was some relief, and then I was able to start shifting my focus towards next year."
Ledecky, who will be a heavy favorite for every event she competes in at the Tokyo Olympics, adjusted her training during the lockdown: She and teammate Simone Manuel spent three months swimming in a Bay Area family's backyard pool, and Ledecky did weight training in the confines of her apartment.
Training for another year will be tough, she said, but Ledecky is embracing the task.
"It's why I love the sport — I love the challenge," she said. "I love what I'm working towards and I'm enjoying each day along the journey."
Press and fellow USWNT star forward Tobin Heath have also focused on their love of the game.
"It's easy to continue to go out to the field, even if I'm by myself or running and lifting and doing what I need to do — it's actually easy because I love what I do," Press said, adding, "that mindset of coming back to the day, coming back to the touch, to the shot, to the exercise that I need to do, is the best way for me to get through this long stretch of time."
Heath — who has won two Olympic gold medals and two World Cups with the USWNT — similarly said the delay hasn't hurt her drive to train.
"That's the easy part, to continue to do what you love, to focus, to train, there's no extra motivation that needs to be added to that," she told Insider, then added, "for me, there's even more motivation now than ever, even though it seems like there shouldn't be."
USWNT players have had a busy year: After winning the World Cup in France last summer, the players returned to finish their club seasons in the National Women's Soccer League. The national team held a victory tour in the fall, then players regrouped for camp in January, followed by Olympic qualifiers in February, and then the SheBelieves Cup in March.
They played the third and final game of that tournament on March 11, the same night that Rudy Gobert of the Utah Jazz tested positive for the coronavirus, catalyzing the shutdown of US professional sports.
Then, suddenly, it all stopped.
"I haven't spent this much time in one place ever in my whole entire life," Heath said. "So at first, I feel like I had this itch to go, to move, to be somewhere different. But once that subsided, I really changed my perspective of this time and I didn't wish for something that was."
After that, she added, "I really started enjoying and embracing this time."
Team USA Olympians have adapted on the fly
Press said facing an additional year of training often overwhelms her: It's "hard to do when you don't have a date to train for," she said.
To combat that dread, the 31-year-old said she's pursuing "a balance of staying fit, staying healthy, staying ready, staying sharp, but also staying fresh and living today for its fullest."
"You kind of have to stay in a place where you're joyous, where you're enjoying every training," Press added. "Being comfortable isn't really a part of my job normally; it's always about getting past that."
Murphy said swimmers, too, are getting a lesson in how to "stay flexible and really be able to change direction really quickly," especially since they are notoriously regimented in their approach to training.
"We're a very routine-oriented sport, so for the past six or seven years since I've been training at Cal, I've had the same sort of practice schedule and I've had similar weights," he added. "This has been really interesting to experiment with new things, and I'm finding things that I want to keep in my training plan. That's something I've really enjoyed about this time."
But the takeaways extend beyond swimming, Murphy said.
"There are a lot of things that I'm learning in this time that are applicable to when life goes back to normal," he added. "Honestly, I view it as a challenge to stay on top of everything mentally."
Ledecky, too, is trying to keep looking on the bright side.
"I'm trying to use this year as an opportunity and not as a setback to really be more than ready for the Olympics in Tokyo and to try to feel more prepared next year than I would've been this year," she said. "I feel like I'm on track."
The USA Track & Field team is taking the same approach, Quigley said.
"Not a lot of mopers or woe is me type of people," she said. "When we found out the news, there was an initial disappointment and bummed out, but then we pretty quickly picked up again."
As of now, the Tokyo Olympics are scheduled to kick off on July 23, 2021. Toshiro Muto, the CEO of the Tokyo organizing committee, is adamant that the games will happen next year.
But others think holding the games next summer might still be unsafe, and it's anyone's guess what the events might look like if they do go ahead as planned.
"We'll just see what happens come 2021 now," Bird said. "Hopefully we're able to pull it off, but again there's no playbook for this."
- Read more:
- The Tokyo Olympics were supposed to be this week. Here's how 7 big names from Team USA are training and spending their free time.
- 3-time Olympic gold medalist Ryan Murphy pushed his car up a hill as a creative workout alternative during quarantine
- The best competitive swimmer on the planet spent 3 months training in a backyard pool while training for the Olympics
- The Tokyo Olympics are less than a year away (again) — here are 13 athletes to watch for breakout performances