DAVID ISAACSON | It’s the ‘real’ Olympic athletes who will suffer if Games are cancelled

Roger Federer’s recent comments on whether the Tokyo Olympics should go ahead illustrate the massive difference between Olympic sports and sports that happen to be on the Olympic roster.

“I would love to play in the Olympics, win a medal for Switzerland. It would make me especially proud,” said the player with 20 Grand Slam singles titles and two Games medals. “But if it doesn’t happen because of the situation, I would be the first to understand.”

Spoken like a true tennis great who knows he will almost certainly get the chance to play the remaining three Grand Slam events of 2021, and all four of them next year.

I’m not suggesting for a second that the Games should go ahead at the expense of the health and lives of anyone.

The French Open begins on Monday, Wimbledon runs from June 28 to July 11, the US Open will kick off on August 30 and the 2022 Australian Open is scheduled to start on January 17.

Remove the Tokyo Olympics from his season and he’ll barely notice.

But cancelling Tokyo would be a hammer blow to a lot of real Olympic sports people, from rowers and wrestlers to athletes and gymnasts.

I’m not suggesting for a second that the Games should go ahead at the expense of the health and lives of anyone.

My point is simply that cancelling the Games would not be as easy for others as it would for Federer, who plays a sport that, quite honestly, shouldn’t be part of the Games.

Golf is another one. Several players, including SA’s best, boycotted Rio 2016 because of the Zika virus, but Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps and thousands of others still went to Brazil because the Games meant a lot to them.

The Olympics is not the pinnacle of tennis and golf, but it is for many other sports in which competitors have been training almost non-stop since the beginning of 2017.

Akani Simbine looks to be in the shape of his life and if I were a betting man I’d put a few rand on him winning a medal in the men’s 100m.

There’s no guarantee that he would still be a top-three finisher come Paris 2024.

Look at fencer Juliana Barrett, who qualified for Rio 2016 by winning the African qualifying tournament, but whose invitation to compete there was allowed to lapse by the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee (Sascoc) because it didn’t recognise continental qualification.

Sascoc changed its qualifying selection policy in 2019, but this year Barrett ended second at the African qualifying tournament, losing in the final against a fencer she had beaten five years earlier. Only winners qualified for Tokyo.

The men’s rowing four of Lawrence Brittain, John Smith, Kyle Schoonbee and Sandro Torrente are in great shape now, but that doesn’t mean they’ll still be a force in three years’ time.

The same could be true of swimmer Tatjana Schoenmaker, surfer Jordy Smith, triathlete Henri Schoeman and others.

One fact about SA Olympism is that not one local champion, since the nation officially started competing at the 1908 Games, has successfully defended a title at the next Olympics.

Caster Semenya has come the closest. The silver she won at London 2012 was upgraded to gold officially only after she’d won at 2016. In Tokyo, Wayde van Niekerk will be the only South African capable of trying for a second straight triumph, though he must still qualify.

There seems to be a growing wave of discontent in Japan over the looming Olympics, and it would seem that if a referendum were to be held, the majority would vote against the showpiece.

Sunday will mark exactly two months to go to the opening ceremony, and it seems unlikely the Japanese government, which is losing popularity over the Olympics, will allow the public to decide.

If the Games are cancelled, I do hope the decision is based on objective scientific facts and not fear.

Because cancellation will hurt the many thousands of real Olympic athletes out there, Federer excluded.