Limpag: Will new normal mean no sports?

THIS early, people are being primed to prepare for a new normal after the enhanced community quarantine (ECQ), which hopefully ends on May 15. The wearing of face masks and social distancing will be a must and there will still be a ban on mass gathering.

And that pretty much means sports events won’t still be happening. I can’t imagine athletes being forced to wear face masks just to play their games. So I guess, the return of sports events in our lives will still be months away.

This early, the Philippine Basketball Association is preparing to write off this season and I think the two players who will gain in that is June Mar Fajardo, who was going to miss the season anyway due to an injury and Greg Slaughter, who wanted to take a break.

The next major event in Cebu would have been the Ironman 70.3 in August. The Ironman weekend also usually coincides with the opening of the Cebu Schools Athletic Foundation Inc. (Cesafi).

Air travel, I hope, would normalize come August but would the athletes come if organizers do proceed with the Ironman 70.3? The event would be a much-needed boost to the struggling tourism industry and would it be wise to proceed with it? The event attracted thousands of athletes from all over the world and I hope by that time and if by that time, Covid-19 still affects other countries, I don’t think our borders will be open to those countries.

The Cesafi, on the other hand, have more issues to mesh out first before even deciding on the opening of its new season. There’s the unfinished semester for some members and there’s the planned September opening, which makes an August opening impossible for the league.

And if social distancing is still a must at that time, there won’t be a Cesafi opening for sure. One more thing, a federation of private school owners said its members are struggling, with some facing closures. I know the K12 had the private schools bleeding financially and to think some were just starting to recover before Covid-19.

Schools that struggled with K12 dropped their athletic programs to save on costs, and if the private schools continue to be a struggle financially under Covid-19, sports will be the first on the chopping block.

I hope things will change next month. The first four months of the year have been pretty tough. As someone said on Facebook, the first four months seemed like looking both ways before crossing the street and getting hit by an airplane.

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