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EPISODE: Episode 22
Join us on our on-going exploration of the Olympics to be held in Tokyo 2021, featuring Christian from the Friday Night Panel, and the route to the ring. Watch TalkinFight weekdays at 12, 4, 7, and 8:30pm EST on YouTube or LIVE at talkinfight.com/live @Olympic @IOC Media #britishboxing
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Transcribed:
Hello, boxy fans around the world.
Thank you once again for joining us on talking fight for another episode on the olympics, coming to tokyo, this july, featuring christian from the friday night panel.
What do you got for us today, christian? Well, graham, we got a couple of updates since the weekend on a couple of stories that we’ve been following, so we’re going to start uh today with mandy bujold, our uh, our local boxer here.
Well, i’m not local she’s down the road in kitchener and we’re in toronto, but canadian all the same uh well mandy plans to take her fight for a birth at the tokyo olympics to the court of arbitration for sport bujold and her lawyer sylvie rodriguez.
We talked about a little bit last week had petitioned the international olympic committee for a birth based on her pregnancy and maternity leave and had hoped for a decision by this past friday.
But bujold said in an email.
We are disappointed and quite frankly, surprised that neither the ioc nor the olympic boxing task force have yet responded.
Now.
This is to uh the letter sent by her lawyer on the 23rd of april.
She continued saying they have not reached out yet to indicate if they are planning to rectify the qualifying rules to accommodate female athletes who were pregnant or postpartum.
During the chosen qualifying period for tokyo on saturday, uh bujold uh told cbc sports that she has heard from the ioc and expects the decision to her petition, hopefully by tuesday after a competitive year, wiped out by the global pandemic.
The 11 time national flyweight champion had been confident that she’d clinched a berth at the olympic qualifying tournament that was supposed to be taking place in may in buenos aires or this month.
I guess now in buenos aires but, as we all know, the event was recently cancelled due to climbing covered with 19 case numbers in argentina.
She went on to say uh.
Should we not hear anything at all by tuesday we will have no choice but to pursue a discrimination legal challenge before the court of arbitration for sport, we’re also exploring other legal avenues.
Now bujold is a two-time, pan-american uh games champion and would be the first female to box for canada at two consecutive olympics.
That’S if she is able to secure her birth now, an illness derailed her dreams.
At the 2016 rio games just hours before her quarterfinal loss to china’s ren can can she was ill in hospital and on an iv drip and eventually had to settle for fifth place.
So hopefully you know, hopefully she hears something by end of day today from the ioc or from the uh.
The boxing task force as to whether or not she’s gon na need to pursue further legal action on this particular one, but uh again, we talked about this last week, graham, and i don’t see, i see the ioc dragging their heels on this one and whether we See some kind of meaningful change come later on down the road hard to say, but sadly i would be surprised if we got to see mandy box at this olympics.
Oh yeah carl’s noticed yeah and yes, carl, that that is an england shirt with your one.
Star earned back in the 60s, i believe, but before we get sidetracked and on to footy, let’s uh.
Let’S stick with the games for now, because uh, following up on another story that we had been covering last week, organizers of the tokyo olympics have now sparked anger in japan’s medical community.
After having asked for 500 nurses to volunteer for this summer’s games now, as you know, the request came as as the international olympic committee and organizers press ahead with plans to hold the games, even as the coronavirus pandemics continues to worsen in the host nation and amid Warnings that the event could place an intolerable strain on exhausted health care workers, medical staff in tokyo and other areas where cases are surging say that their professional focus must remain on coronavirus, patients and people with other illnesses who have had their treatments delayed due to the Virus olympic officials are currently saying that 10 000 medical workers will be needed during the games which, as we know, are going to be held during the hottest part of the year.
But the recent request to the japanese nursing association to send 500 of its members to tokyo 2020 was met with a wave of anger on social media from nurses who said that they were frankly too busy to devote their time to the olympics.
Now, in a tweet, a little by a local federation of medical unions outlining its opposition to performing olympic duties has now received hundreds of thousands of retweets.
Over the last couple of days, the secretary general of japan’s federation of medical workers, unions, uh susumu, said that the pandemic should take priority, saying we must stop the proposal to send nurses who are engaged in a fight against a serious coronavirus pandemic to volunteer at the Olympics, i am furious at the insistence on staging the olympics, despite the risk to patients and nurses health and lives.
Now, although medical workers were the first group in japan to start receiving vaccine vaccines mid-february as the first part of the rollout many have yet to be.
Given their first jab maria said, unprotected medical staff fear contracting the virus while treating patients or administrating or administering vaccines.
Prime minister uh yoshihido suga provoked dismay when he suggested that nurses who had stopped working, including those suffering from stress and exhaustion, could be enlisted for tokyo.
2020 saying i hear many are taking time off and it should be possible and while suga replete repeats the claims by the ioc and organizers that it will be possible to put on a quote safe and secure olympics.
In 81 days time, medical experts are increasingly skeptical and by the sounds of it so is carl over in uh across in the uk as well uh yeah.
So obviously medical professionals are going to be needed at the games for a host of different reasons.
Part of that is going to be monitoring the coronavirus situation directly and part of that is obviously going to be uh you’re, never going to see an olympic games that doesn’t have an injury.
You know we we talk about combat sports, but you know: gymnasts come down off the bar uh cyclists crash and force.
You know we need first responders we’re going to need medical personnel on hand at the olympics and that’s that’s a no-brainer, but at the same time you can see the other side of that going guys we’re busy.
Our hands are tight over here.
We’Re dealing with this pandemic, we can’t take the time to travel into tokyo, find accommodation and then volunteer our time on top of that.
So we, if the games end up going forward, we may see them expanding that volunteer list that they are allowing into japan to include medical professionals, because they’ve already talked about, including about 500 people, but those weren’t, specifically nurses.
But there are times including approximately 500 people from outside of japan, who are coming in under special visas for the tokyo olympics because they do have specialized talents or experience that are going to be integral to the running of the games.
So if it goes ahead, we may see uh those numbers expanded and a call go out to health care professionals who are able to spare the time we’ll see i’m 19 confident yeah carl here is asking uh what our confidence is as to whether or not these Games are going to go ahead and i’m with graham on this one.
I think that we are going to see uh an olympic games.
What they’re going to look like that waits to be seen, but i think we’ve we’ve kind.
We we won’t beat this one to death because we’ve done it a few times now, but there’s just there’s too much money.
There’S i mean human life and the contracts there.
Unfortunately, this isn’t a scale where we’re going to try to find a balance here, because the people who are worried about the contracts and the money are not worried about the coronavirus, they’re, hell or high water trying to figure out.
How can we hold this game? How can we recoup our losses and how we still make as much money as possible and that’s who’s in charge of running these games, not the medical experts, so i’m with i’m with you on this one.
Graham, i think 100 we’re going to see a games go forward.
You know what it kind of reminds me of – and this is an oblique example over here on the left, but i give an example: when a major sports organization wants to put a stadium, it build a new stadium in any city.
What do they do? They go to the municipal government, any level of government and say we need help to build this stadium and the people who are not interested in sports.
Go why the heck? Should our government public money be put towards the building of this new stadium and what happens? Nine times out of ten, if not 90, especially when it comes to olympics what happens the stadiums get built? You know with public money, because there is tremendous benefit to the community at large in having these events take place.
So, as you say, hello, high water, uh and with the new stadium they’ve already lost a pile of money in tokyo because their first designs they got halfway through building and had to scrap and then start a whole new stadium.
So, on specifically the stadium front, they’re already millions in debt on that one right and all i’m saying – is: there’s a lot of money involved here.
So to your point about hell or high water, they will have these olympic games.
I guarantee it 100 carl they’re coming uh, you know and realistically uh.
The people who are complaining go ahead complain all you want, but these olympic games are gon na go forward.
I think we might see a couple of events that can be relocated within japan.
Possibly do get relocated outside of the tokyo metropolitan area and away from osaka.
Perhaps, for example, they’ve already moved the marathon up to hokkaido, which is uh the northern island of japan, which puts it over 500 miles away from the actual olympic stadium.
And that’s because it was deemed unsafe to have that many runners running through the streets of tokyo very given the current situation, so we might see something like a boxing tournament if we’re not having fans, this can happen in any community center around japan really.
So we may see some sports start to get relocated, but i don’t see a full cancellation at this point in time.
Did you have a chance to uh blast through the playbook that came out last week again there are a few changes going in there and we’re going to have to devote an entire episode to that, because the original playbook was about 30 pages long and this one’s About 70.
, so we are getting into some into uh deeper into the specifics uh the reason we haven’t delved too too deeply into it as of yet is because this is a lot of general information, yet we’re actually not for another couple of weeks, expecting sport specific.
So we’ll be able to take a look at, for example, some of the larger problems that are going to be facing the olympics and what our you know, all the olympians are going to have to go through.
But as far as what’s going to be specifically uh, you know our boxers are going to be going through that that we don’t have that information.
Yet as that’s going to be, uh won’t be published for another couple of weeks.
Yet the sport specifics, but we will be looking into, we will definitely be looking, especially once we have some sport specific stuff, though uh to uh to report on, but talking boxing though, and talking sports specific and the fact that these games are still happening.
You know national teams are ramping up their uh training efforts, so i thought i would take a quick look as well at our friends down in ghana as it’s been a while since we’ve uh since we’ve checked in on them, so the ghanian national boxing team, the Black bombers have raised the tempo of their preparations for the olympic games.
You know they’ve, upped, that to a new level, they’re saying as they’ve moved now into the residential uh camp at the golden beach resort, under strict monitoring and evaluation by the ghanian boxing federation uh.
They now train at the uh bukom boxing arena inside the trust sports emporium a couple of times a day with a morning session and an afternoon session starting around three other major major considerations.
Uh, for the team is mainly you know, are all going to focus around safety of the boxers in their controlled movement to stop any possible coven.
19 infections, uh captain sula montana, a flyweight and 2012 olympian says that he’s happy that they’ve moved to the camp at this point in time.
Featherweight samuel attackier also said it’s good that they’re now in a different frame of mind, as well as a new setting, meaning.
I mean that they’re getting ready for the games, because they’re coming up shakul samir is a light heavyweight and he thinks that uh, you know they’re going to be uh, bringing a big surprise.
Samira who’s, the last of them to qualify, did so on the global ranking system and uh used his bronze medal.
Winning performance at the african games to cinch his spot for tokyo, and once he does step into the ring shaku, will uh seal the status of his family as all as an olympic family, as he as having three olympians as both of his elder brothers, basti and Isa samir are both 2008 olympians from the back of the beijing games now, on top of those there’s, also two more boxers uh from ghana, hoping to make it into the games once the final rankings are released.
Uh female boxer, dr ornella saffound who’s, a specialist in analytical chemistry, is hoping to be ghana’s first female to make it to the olympics and jesse larday 2018 commonwealth games, brawn, medalist, ghana’s, amateur boxing team uh, the black bombers, as well as other qualified athletes, are going To be spending four weeks in japan’s eastern pacific coastal city of inowashiro before starting their campaign at the tokyo olympic games, so the ghanian national team is ramping up their uh ramping up their efforts as they get a little closer to the games hoping to qualify.
Another couple: once the final rankings come out, but they’re definitely sending at least those three and they’ll definitely be ones to watch out for at the games.
Well done, go gon na go! Oh yeah! I mean you still got your uh, your team, ghana, shirts at home somewhere somewhere, yes, they’re, underneath my team, england shirts, which are underneath my team, canada, shirts, well they’re, all football, so uh updates for this one.
Those are the updates from the weekend that we missed right thanks very much.
I appreciate that yeah yeah it just make.
You know, ghana, given the whole spectrum of african nations.
I mean take a look.
This weekend there was a there was a professional uh uh card over in egypt up in egypt.
So the africans are well into the sport of boxing and i’m pretty sure um.
You know ghana’s if they’re prepared to send six three fighters and have them spend four weeks prior to the olympics in japan.
That has to be on the radar of all these other nations as well.
So so yeah are the olympic games going forward.
Absolutely? Why? Because everyone has a contingency and they’re, then they’re acting on it absolutely, and we see you know other teams like uh the filipino national team they’re, not in the philippines right now, they’re already in training camp in thailand and uh they’ll be going directly from thailand to Tokyo, so they’ll be going from bangkok to tokyo, so they’re not even going to get a chance to go to go home between now and the games so because they are keeping these bubbles as tight.
And these national olympic committees are trying to keep these bubbles as tight as possible so that we don’t see outbreaks like we have seen in the in the indian national side.
Now, obviously, things going on in india are obviously a lot more dire than a lot of other places in the world, so it shouldn’t be terribly surprising that we’re seeing outbreaks there, but you know they’ve been trying to keep these bubbles as tight as possible, especially for These athletes, who have qualified to the games to have that taken away from you last minute, as we get closer and closer to the games um, the paranoia is going to be ramped up you’re going to see these bubbles start getting a lot.
Tighter restrictions going up.
Um self-imposed as well as the actual you know, national olympic committees imposing travel and uh restrictions on their athletes in order to ensure that they are going to have healthy athletes going into tokyo yeah.
I agreed right on okay thanks very much christian appreciate your update and uh.
We’Ll see you tomorrow, thanks carl
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