Canadian boxer Mandy Bujold had been trying to tune out negative COVID-19 news and focus solely on training and her quest for a Tokyo Olympic berth.
But the two-time Pan American Games champion woke up from a nap Wednesday morning to bad news she couldn’t escape. The Americas Olympic qualifying event later this month in Buenos Aires had been cancelled amid the global spread of the disease, leaving Bujold and 12 Canadian teammates in limbo.
“I’ve been avoiding a bit of the news because all the stuff about the Olympics being cancelled. Are they cancelled? Are they not? I just want to focus on what I need to do, so I’ve been trying to avoid it, but I didn’t think this was going to happen,” Bujold said. “I thought maybe they would get the qualifier [completed] before the virus got too bad … and I haven’t heard of any cases in Argentina. Seemed like a safe place to be going.”
On Wednesday however, Argentina was among three Latin American countries to isolate travellers from countries stricken by COVID-19, and was the first Latin American country to register a death attributed to the virus last Saturday.
Canada was sending a team of 13 boxers next week to Argentina for the March 26 to April 3 event.
The IOC Boxing Task Force (BTF) informed in a statement it’s “doing its utmost to find the best solution.”
Bujold, a 32-year-old from Kitchener, Ont., said complicating matters is the fact that elite athletes peak for certain events, such as Olympic qualifying tournaments and the Games themselves.
Concerns over the spread of the novel coronavirus, which causes COVID-19, also caused the delay of the Asia and Oceania qualifier which was originally scheduled for Wuhan, China — the hub of the initial outbreak of the virus — in early February.
That event was changed to Jordan’s capital Amman with the finals taking place Wednesday.
The African continental Olympic qualifying event has already been held, while the European Olympic qualifier opens Friday in London.
The BTF’s decision to cancel the Buenos Aires tournament was latest in a long list of events that have been cancelled due to COVID-19.
