ROMY P. MARIÑASIn Charles M. Schulz’s “You’re a Winner Charlie Brown!” Linus breaks a lamp.Lucy goes, “Ha! Now, you’ve done it! Now you’ve broken a lamp, and now you’ve got no one to blame it on but yourself!”Linus: “Maybe I could blame it on society!”If we agree with Linus, then we can dump it all on society, especially the coronavirus that has wreaked havoc not only on health but also politics and sports and other fields where politicians rally support for their advocacies or athletes break records and their backers and fans riot and smash more than lamps in case of a defeat in the elections or in the boxing ring.Many local leagues from basketball to volleyball have indefinitely potsponed scheduled games, with players forced to sit it out and wait for the virus from Wuhan to blow over.Apparently hurting the most are Filipino athletes who had been aiming for glory in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics but who have not secured berths in the quadrennial games.At this writing, only gymnast Carlos Yulo and pole vaulter EJ Obiena are the only two Filipino athletes who had punched a ticket to this year’s Olympiad in the Japanese capitalAmong the local athletes, weightlifter Hidilyn Diaz and boxer Eumir Felix Marcial have been the two stronger bets for slots in Tokyo, only for the qualifiers in their respective events to be canceled mainly because of the virus that reportedly has killed more than a thousand people in China alone.Unfortunately, Diaz, Marcial and a handful of others dreaming of taking part in what is considered to be the championships of championships of the world have only until June to qualify for Tokyo and the Games opens on July 20.This is where the problem lies for the Olympic organizers.Also at this writing, Tokyo is adamantly dismissing suggestions that the 2020 Olympic Games be postponed, with the hope, perhaps, that a vaccine against the coronavirus would be developed before July.Also, perhaps, Japan, the first Asian country to host the Olympic Games in 1964, wants to be known as also the first Asian country to hold it for the second time.What to do under the circumstances?Maybe the organizers can reduce the number of qualifiers, without of course compromising the criteria for qualification.In this way, the playing is leveled to the relief of aspiring Olympians who have trained for four long years for the chance of a lifetime to compete with the best of the best and emerge better than the rest.But then health is wealth and the coronavirus is a medical issue that the organizers of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics can’t — shouldn’t — sacrifice before the altar of commerce.
