Angela Whyte and Lanni Marchant hoped to write victorious final chapters of their long track and field careers at the Tokyo Games this summer but that has been put on hold because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
TORONTO — Angela Whyte and Lanni Marchant hoped to write victorious final chapters of their long track and field careers at the Tokyo Games this summer.
“I had that pause moment of: I had grinded it out so hard. It was a big ask to get my body back ready to even consider trying to qualify this spring. I accomplished . ‘Oh my gosh, can I keep this grind going for another year?”’ Marchant said. “That was my initial concern, you’ve poured every moment of your time, every dollar that you’ve had into fixing your body with the hope of the glory pay-off at the end. And now you have to postpone it a year.
“I want to be the voice for athletes who want to pursue the power/speed events when they’re older,” Whyte said.This weekend she would have competed in the Canadian championships and Olympic trials for the heptathlon and decathlon.Whyte, who competed briefly in multi-events while at the University of New Mexico, decided to switch to the heptathlon , because she gets bored just doing the hurdles, and felt that in her final season, she had nothing to lose.
The 36-year-old from London, Ont., had surgery to repair a torn labrum, a bone spur and nerve impingement in her left hip, and also underwent kidney surgery.“And like every athlete, I had my ‘Woe is me,”’ Marchant said of the Olympic postponement. “It didn’t help we got hit with a blizzard in late-March right when everything was happening. I had a week where I think I ran twice.
The second in a series, Friday’s free virtual session will be presented in both languages and hosted by figure skater Tessa Virtue and Paralympic swimmer Benoit Huot.There’s fear that with no vaccine the Games can’t happen next year either. But whatever the next 12 months holds, Marchant and Whyte say they’ll both leave their Olympic careers feeling satisfied. Tokyo, though, would be the perfect ending.
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