2022 Packed Athletics schedule may force athletes to choose events || Sprinters can manage- reckon Coach Gunawardena
The Covid-19 situation has compelled several changes to be made to the global sporting calendar for the next few years, which has left some of the Commonwealth athletes with the dilemma of choosing between championships, with three major athletics events normally stretched out between two years, now falling within a two month period.
World Athletics Championship in Oregon, USA, is the first. The event is scheduled to be held from 15 to 24 July, followed by the Commonwealth Games (CWG) in Birmingham, England, scheduled to take place from 27 July to 7 August. British athletes will then have to travel to Munich, Germany, to take part in the European Championship which starts on 11 August, just four days after the conclusion of the CWG.
Athletes from Commonwealth countries in Asia like Sri Lanka, India, Malaysia and Singapore, will have a mere four week gap to prepare themselves for the Asian Games following the Commonwealth Games.
Along with the hassle of travelling between countries, training conflicts and other events such as the Diamond League intervening, athletes will find it hard to compete in all three major events and will be compelled to select the major event where they will have a chance of making an impact according to their performance level. An athlete who has a great chance of winning at the Commonwealth Games yet relatively less chance of making an impact in the World Championship may choose to skip the World Championship (WC), however prestigious it is to represent the country at the WC.
Hiruni Wijayarathne is the only Sri Lankan athlete who competed in the Asian Games 2018, CWG 2018 and qualified for the last WC. Even if she makes the cut in 2022 it will be impossible for her to represent the country in all three in her pet event the Marathon, and she will be forced into making a difficult choice, which surely she won’t like to do as it’s an athletes’ dream to compete in all major competitions.
Javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra from India who tops the world list with a performance of 87.86m in 2020, won Gold at both the Commonwealth Games and Asian Games in 2018, but there was a gap of four months between events. This time, however, he will have just over a month in between these two Games, and only a couple of days between the World Championship and CWG.
British sprinter Dina–Asher Smith is another top elite athlete who will have a tough time according to the schedule. Asher Smith won three events at both the last World Championship (2019) – including Gold in the 200m – and the European Championship (2018). She also won 200m Bronze and 4x100m Gold at the last Commonwealth Games (2018).
She would love to win medals in all three of these Games in 2022 too, but will have to do so by competing in several rounds (heats, semi-finals, finals) of each sprinting event of the three Games within just a month’s time in three different countries.
Former Asian Games Gold medalist, Olympian and veteran Coach Sunil Gunawardene, who has trained athletes who have competed in all four major events (AG, CWG, WC, Olympics), said sprinters will have no issue managing the work load if they plan well.
“It’s all about planning in advance. Sprinters can manage to compete in individual Games and recover quickly. We just have to train them for that in advance. Even now athletes compete like that during Grand Prix and Diamond League events,” said Gunawardene.
“I’m glad we are going first. I think the World Championships is the number one event on the globe that year in track and field, and it feels right that we’re going first. I wouldn’t want to be going after the Europeans, for example,” Oregon 2022 World Athletics Championships Chief Executive Niels de Vos said.
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2022 Major Championships schedule
15 to 24 July – World Athletics Championship – Oregon, USA
27 July to 7 August – Commonwealth Games, Birmingham, UK
11 to 21 August – European Championship, Munich, Germany
10 to 25 September – Asian Games, Hangzhou, China
