Most, but not all cyclists quarantined on Yas Island in Abu Dhabi have been released after testing negative for COVID-19. However, a few teams remain and some of them are not happy. At all.
Nathan Peter Haas, who I’ve followed on Twitterfor years, put together a pretty funny video, trying to make the best of it.
In other cool news, Chloé Dygert Owen, featured here before, has won several gold medals in the Track Worlds, including a world record in the Individual Pursuit and the Women’s Team Pursuit.
Swimming tickets are a hard ticket to get, or at least it seemed so, and the price indicates they are popular. We managed to get tickets to session TOSWM04. There are 15 sessions of swimming, starting from July 25 through August 2. The events we will see in our session are:
Women’s 100m Butterfly Final and Victory Ceremony
Men’s 200m Freestyle Semifinals
Women’s 100m Breaststroke Semifinals
Men’s 100m Breaststroke Final and Victory Ceremony
Women’s 400m Freestyle Final and Victory Ceremony
Men’s 100m Backstroke Semifinals
Women’s 100m Backstroke Semifinals
Men’s 4 x 100m Freestyle Relay Final and Victory Ceremony
These events are finals and semifinals, so they will be highly competitive.
The top performer in 2019 in the Women’s 100m Butterfly is Canadian Margaret McNeil, with Americans Kelsi Dahlia and Katie McLaughlin in the top ten.
Last year there were no Americans in the top ten Men’s 200m Freestyle. However, Japan’s Katsuhiro Matsumoto was the fifth highest ranked swimmer so if he makes the finals the crowd will be crazy. American Andrew Seliskar is just outside the top ten.
Lilly King (from Evansville, Indiana and an IU grad) is the reigning world champion at the Women’s 100m Breaststroke, Annie Lazor had the third best time of the year, and Japan’s Reona Aoki had the fourth best time. More crazy fans likely for this event as well.
In the World Championships last year, Adam Peaty of Great Britian set the Men’s 100m Breaststroke world record, fellow countryman James Wilby (not this James Wilby) had the third fastest time of the year, Yasuhiro Koseki had the eighth fastest time, and American Andrew Wilson had the ninth fastest. Yet another chance to see a Japanese swimmer get a home country boost.
China’s Jiayu Xu had the top time in the 100m Backstroke, and three Americans, Ryan Murphy (not Indianapolis’ Ryan Murphy of “Glee” fame), Shaine Casas, and Matt Grevers were all in the top ten as well as Japan’s Ryosuke Irie.
The Women’s 100m backstroke top time of 2019 is held by American’s Regan Smith, who set a world record at the 2019 World Championships and will graduate from high school THIS YEAR. Three other Americans, Phoebe Bacon (another high schooler), Olivia Smoliga, and Kathleen Baker are also in the top 10.
Finally, the USA had the fastest Men’s 4 x 100m Freestyle Relay, followed by Russia and Australia. Japan was tenth.
Note to USA Swimming – hire a professional photographer to do your bio shots. Preferably someone who knows how to use the “focus” feature.
One swimmer we won’t be seeing in the Men’s 200m Freestyle event is Sun Yang. He was banned for eight years for his second doping violation.
COVID-19, also known as the Wuhan Coronavirus, the Novel Coronavirus, 2019-nCoV, or whatever you want to call it may be the biggest gold medal winner at the 2020 games.
As we edge towards a declaration of a pandemic, lots of things are being disrupted. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has just raised the alert level in Japan to Level 2 – Practice Enhanced Precautions.
Alert – Level 2, Sustained Community Transmission—Special Precautions for High-Risk Travelers
Older adults and those with chronic medical conditions should consider postponing nonessential travel.
Travelers should avoid contact with sick people and clean their hands often by washing with soap and water for at least 20 seconds or using an alcohol-based hand sanitizer with 60%–95% alcohol.
What is the current situation?
A new coronavirus that recently emerged in China has been detected in a number of other locations around the world. Many cases of COVID-19 have been associated with travel to or from mainland China or close contact with a travel-related case, but sustained community spread has been reported in Japan. Sustained community spread means that people have been infected with the virus, but how or where they became infected is not known, and the spread is ongoing.
Illness with this virus has ranged from mild to severe. Signs and symptoms of infection include fever, cough, and difficulty breathing. Sore throat and diarrhea have also been reported in some patients. This new coronavirus has caused severe disease and death in patients who developed pneumonia. Risk factors for severe illness are not yet clear, although older adults and those with chronic medical conditions may be at higher risk for severe illness.
What can travelers do to protect themselves and others?
Because older adults and those with chronic medical conditions may be at higher risk for severe disease, people in these groups should discuss travel with a healthcare provider and consider postponing nonessential travel.
If you travel to Japan, take the following steps:
Avoid contact with sick people.
Avoid touching your eyes, nose, or mouth with unwashed hands.
Clean your hands often by washing them with soap and water for at least 20 seconds or using an alcohol-based hand sanitizer that contains at 60%–95% alcohol. Soap and water should be used if hands are visibly dirty.
It is especially important to clean hands after going to the bathroom; before eating; and after coughing, sneezing or blowing your nose.
If you spent time in Japan during the past 14 days and feel sick with fever, cough, or difficulty breathing:
Seek medical advice. Call ahead before going to a doctor’s office or emergency room. Tell them about your recent travel an area with community spread of coronavirus, and your symptoms.
Avoid contact with others.
Do not travel while sick.
Cover your mouth and nose with a tissue or your sleeve (not your hands) when coughing or sneezing.
Clean your hands by washing them with soap and water for at least 20 seconds or using an alcohol-based hand sanitizer that contains 60%–95% alcohol immediately after coughing, sneezing, or blowing your nose. Soap and water should be used if hands are visibly dirty.
Clinician Information
Healthcare providers should obtain a detailed travel history for patients with fever or acute respiratory symptoms. For patients with these symptoms who were in Japan and had onset of illness within 2 weeks of leaving, consider novel coronavirus infection and notify infection control personnel and your local health department immediately.
For additional healthcare infection control recommendations, visit CDC’s Infection Control webpage.
The threat of COVID-19 has already disrupted the Tokyo Marathon, causing the cancellation for all but elite runners. I’ve been to the Tokyo Marathon before by chance as it started at my hotel. Indeed it is a very dense cluster of people.
Strangely, from that time, I don’t have any pictures from the start. I take pictures of everything yet I don’t have that. I do have a picture from the runners coming through Ginza. Even at that point the course is still crowded and there are crowds on the sidelines. These were not the elite runners.
Tokyo Marathon heading towards the finish late in the day
In other impacts, the recent FINA Grand Prix Diving event in Madrid did not have the Chinese divers as their travel was impacted.
However, in the same article they are quick to stress that Tokyo 2020 will go on.
Organizers have been at pains to stress there is no question of canceling or postponing Tokyo 2020 despite mounting fears over the potentially deadly virus spreading fast around the globe.
…
The International Olympic Committee has also said there is no need for a contingency plan to postpone, cancel or move Tokyo 2020, despite new cases of the deadly virus emerging daily in Japan.
“I can confirm Tokyo 2020 remains on track,” top IOC official John Coates said last week in Tokyo.
Tokyo 2020 CEO Yoshiro Mori has criticized “irresponsible rumors” about the Games.
One time I flew from the US to Japan when there was a Swine Flu outbreak in the US (in 2009). The local government where I lived tracked me down and called me every day for a week to ask about my condition. They take infectious disease seriously. It will be interesting though to see how they handle the Olympics if COVID-19 is the international pandemic it is likely to become.
I arrived back to Japan on Tuesday, just as the hub-bub over the swine flu was begin to intensify. As a matter of fact, Sunday night in the US I emailed my boss warning that the frenzy over the flu could impact my travel plans. I think he thought I was crazy. However, I kept checking the interwebs and the JAL home page to see if my travel would be impacted. At that time, the JAL web page just said that they were in contact with the appropriate authorities. I talked to Tomo and he said that planes were going to be delayed at Narita while health officials came onboard and screened the passengers. …
I arrived to Narita and, as predicted, we were delayed at the gate for medical officials to board and screen the passengers. It was very movie-like as people in yellow gowns, fancy masks, laboratory goggles, and rubber gloves came on board. We were given paperwork to fill out, and they walked through the plane pointing their thermal imager at people in search of fever. I guess it is fair, the flu has everyone concerned. It did seem over the top though, but totally expected in Japan. Things are not done halfway here.
As I was walking through Narita just after disembarking, I passed a photographer and a news crew. Fortunately no one decided to interview me. I made it the rest of the way home without trouble.
I live in Marunouchi, Naka-ku, Nagoya-shi. Aichi-ken, Japan. That’s neighborhood, ward, city, prefecture, country. A very systematic way of classifying locations. If there are any crazy blogger stalkers out there, I guess I’ve increased my chance for detection through my “open kimono” description of my address. (As a side, is “open kimono” used commonly? It seems to be a popular phrase these days for full disclosure.)
Yesterday, at work, I got a phone call from a local number. It was the Naka-ku health office. Yes, I was getting a telephone call from the local health officials. I gave the phone to one of the translators (thus, infecting her too) to get a better idea of the purpose of the call. Initially, the officer starting asking about my health. The translator told me that I was going to get a call every day between 9:30 am and 10:00 am to check on my health. Do I have a fever? Runny nose? Headache? EVERY DAY UNTIL May 8. She was very adamant that I memorize the Japanese for these symptoms (which, in general, I already knew but just needed a reminder).
Interestingly, at work on Thursday, just before the Golden Week holiday, we got the news that anyone coming from the States has to wait two days after arriving in Japan before coming in to work at our site AND is expected to take their temperature on a daily basis for 10 days and refrain from coming to work if their temperature is greater than 38 deg C. I bought a thermometer on Thursday night but didn’t try to use it until this . I am happy to report that I am a very respectable 36.8 deg C.
Today during my morning phone call, I asked the official if they were only calling foreigners. I couldn’t quite tell but that seemed to be the case. I guess Japanese are responsible enough not to be called? Or maybe I misunderstood.
This is not the news I was expecting to have as a part of my blog, but it is where we are at right now.
The current World Champion in the individual time trial is Indiana’s own Chloé Dygert. She grew up in Brownsburg and went to Marian College and she kicks ass. She’s also a Rio Olympics medalist at age 19 in team pursuit.
The US has two entries in the individual time trial.
She is also married to Logan Owen, who is a professional rider on the EF Education First. He got his start in BMX, moved to cyclocross, and then moved to road racing. You can follow him on Twitter and Instagram.
The women’s time trial runs over the same course as the men, but unfortunately only completes one lap instead of the two for the men.
She hopes to race track, road, and time trial at the 2020 Olympics.
For some reason, women’s cycling is treated differently then men’s cycling. A marathon is a marathon, right? An Ironman Triathlon doesn’t have different rules for women. Unfortunately, for reasons that I don’t fully understand, women’s road cycling has different courses than the men – usually shorter with less climbing.
The Tokyo 2020 course for women is 137 kilometers with 2692 meters in climbing compared to the men’s course of 234 kilometers and 4865 meters. Here’s a great article describing the controversy and a side by side comparison for that article.
The full route doesn’t have as much climbing as the men’s race which can eliminate some of the differentiation between riders and make the run in to the finish very hard.
I had never heard of JT Marvelous … but it sure sounds Japanese. It seems JT Marvelous is in Nishinomiya, Hyogo, Japan and the JT stand for Japan Tobacco Ltd. Why not light up after a match? Go JT Marvelous.
Nishinomiya is the home of the Koshien Stadium (use this link for the official website of the stadium), used by the Hanshin Tigers and also the home of the two annual high school baseball tournaments. When I lived in Japan I would watch the high school tournament on TV when I could, and would always get teary-eyed at the end of a game watching all these kids who gave it their all trying so hard not to cry but more often than not sobbing heavily.
I dare you to watch this video and not get tears in your eyes.
I guess I’ve been through Nishinomiya as it is between Kobe and Osaka, but I didn’t pay attention.
Sorry Annie Drews for making a post about you turn into a walk down memory lane in Japan. But that’s why I’m blogging, making these discoveries and sharing them.
Some of the matchups for some of the events are starting to come out. When we bought tickets, we chose events like “Volleyball – Men’s Preliminary Round (2 matches).” There was no guarantee what teams we would see, or if the matches would even be close. Our tickets for volleyball are on July 31, from 9:00 am to 12:50 pm. Early morning for sure. The other day the volleyball schedule came out. What’s happening in the morning of July 31?
We get to see two North American teams versus two South American teams, and we get to see the US play against Brazil.
The top ten in the world rankings in men’s volleyball show Brazil as number one, the US as number 3, and Canada as number 10. It should be an excellent match between the US and Brazil and could be a preview of the finals.
For the Olympics, in both men’s and women’s volleyball, there are only twelve teams competing. They are divided in two pools, each with six teams. The top four teams of each pool then advance to the quarterfinals. Interestingly, only four out of twelve teams do not advance to the single elimination tournament. The way the semi-finals are arranged, the top two teams in a single group could meet again in the semifinals.
The pools are ordered by number of victories, then by ranking points, then by set ratio, then by points ratio. Three points are given to the match victor if they win by a 3-0 set score, or a 3-1 set score. If they win by a 3-2 set score, the winner gets two points and the loser gets one point. If there is a tie in the ranking points, the next order is set ratio, where the ratio of sets won to sets lost breaks a tie. If there is still at tie, the ratio if points won to point lost sets the order. If there is a STILL a tie, then, “the priority will be given to the team which won the last match between them. When the tie in points ratio is between three or more teams, a new classification of these teams in the terms of points 1, 2 and 3 will be made taking into consideration only the matches in which they were opposed to each other.”
Qualification for the Olympics began in August 2019, when the top 24 teams in the world participated in six intercontinental qualification tournaments in six pools across the globe. The six winners of each pool qualified for the 2020 Tokyo Games. In January of this year, five continental qualification tournaments were held, and the winner of each of those tournaments filled the twelve team qualification pool. Japan, as the host, automatically qualified.
My connection to Purdue University runs deep, so it is exciting to me that several athletes from Purdue have a chance at participating in the Summer Games this year.
David Boudia was a diver at Purdue, and rose to fame as a 10 meter platform diver. Injuries drove him to stop 10 m platform diving and instead compete in 3 m springboard diving this year. He won the gold medal in the 2012 London Games and the bronze in the 2016 Rio Games. That’s quite an accomplishment. Oh, and he also got silver with fellow Purdue diver Steele Johnson in the 10 m synchronized diving in Rio in 2016.
Not sure why Steele was left off this list. Maybe only a few athletes are being spotlighted.
For sure I’ll follow all the athlete’s journeys as the run up to the 2020 Summer Olympics continues
I arrived back to Japan on Tuesday, just as the hub-bub over the swine flu was begin to intensify. As a matter of fact, Sunday night in the US I emailed my boss warning that the frenzy over the flu could impact my travel plans. I think he thought I was crazy. However, I kept checking the interwebs and the JAL home page to see if my travel would be impacted. At that time, the JAL web page just said that they were in contact with the appropriate authorities. I talked to Tomo and he said that planes were going to be delayed at Narita while health officials came onboard and screened the passengers. …
