Athletes go it alone in Tokyo as families watch from afar

Michael Phelps reached for his mother’s hand through a chain link fence near the pool. The 19-year-old swimmer had just won his first Olympic medal – gold, of course – at the 2004 Athens Games and he wanted to share it with the woman who raised him on her own.

That kind of moment between loved ones will not be happening at the pandemic-delayed Tokyo Olympics.

No spectators – local or foreign – will be allowed at the vast majority of venues, where athletes will hang medals around their own necks to protect against spreading the coronavirus. No handshakes or hugs on the podium, either.

“I like to feed off of the crowd,” defending all-around champion gymnast Simone Biles said, “so I’m a little bit worried about how I’ll do under those circumstances.”

Catching sight of familiar faces during competition can bolster an athlete on a big stage. It helped Matthew Centrowitz at the United States track trials, where fans were allowed.

“Seeing my family in the crowd and hearing them gave me a little sense of comfort and what I needed to hear and see to calm my nerves a little bit,” said Centrowitz, the defending Olympic 1,500-metre champion.

The youngest athlete on the US team in Tokyo calls it “weird” that her family will not be in the stands.

“They’re usually at all my meets,” said Katie Grimes, a 15-year-old swimmer from Las Vegas.

Katie Hoff was the same age as Grimes when she was the youngest member of the US team in Athens. Nerves got to her in her first event and Hoff hyperventilated and vomited on the pool deck.

STAY IN TOUCH

“I hope us older swimmers can show them the ropes a little bit and create that family environment,” three-time Olympian Katie Ledecky said. “We will make sure we stay in touch with our families and keep them connected to what we’re doing.”

The decision to prohibit fans was made for health and safety concerns. The Games will be held during a state of emergency in Tokyo, with rising coronavirus infections in a country where 16.8 percent of the population is fully vaccinated. Variant strains of the coronavirus are emerging around the world, too.

Those reaction shots of excited, shocked or crying family members in the stands? Forget it. Singing, chanting and cheering among flag-waving fans at the venues? TV producers will have to look elsewhere.

The people who raised them, comforted them, financed them and encouraged them through injury and defeat will have to be content to keep up with their athletes through calls, texts and video chats, when they are not watching the competition on various devices.

“She said, ‘On TV, I can see it better anyway’,” Dutch swimmer Kira Toussaint said of her mother, Jolanda de Rover, a gold medallist swimmer at the 1984 Olympics.

American high jumper Vashti Cunningham will have her coach, Randall Cunningham, who is also her father, on hand. But she will be missing the rest of the family.

“It just feels good to go and eat with them, for them to be at the Bible studies with me, just everything, going to the stores,” she said. “But it doesn’t really matter to me if there are fans or not. I’m just really excited to go out there and jump. I do wish that our families could come and watch, though.”

AP