[Coach] You jump off a low box just to help you take off.
So, Damian gets his foot down without going toe first.
[Adrienne] It's a pretty basic expectation that one of the world's greatest track athletes
should be at an indoor track now
training for the Tokyo Olympics.
Good I really like the way you got your foot down on that one.
[Adrienne] And yet here's decathlete Damian Warner making the most of it
at a far too small local London, Ontario hockey arena
the only place he's been allowed to train
unable to get access to an indoor track
to be clear he's not complaining
to get this space, all this equipment took hustle and generosity.
So, we'll do two tens two thirties and a forty.
[Adrienne] But, some of this is less than ideal without enough track length
this is how he stops.
Everything is kind of a compromise in here
but I think it works at the end of the day.
As we sit here in this super cold arena
I'm thinking about American athletes
and you know French athletes
and people who have all sorts of stuff available to them
including vaccinations.
Are you worried that there isn't an added inequity
that once again the pandemic has created these big splits?
I follow my competitors and I see that they're training
or they're in nice weather or they're off doing competitions
I understand that in sport there's always going to be some inequity
there's always going to be people that have better facilities
or better equipment, better weather.
Would you go even if you didn't have a vaccine?
I think.
So, I believe that we can
and we should get the vaccine before the Games.
If giving 350 vaccines to athletes that want to go
is not going to cause harm to the population
or to the communities
then I don't think it should be something that's not talked about.
[Sports Commenator] Damian Warner needs something big right here.
[Adrienne] But, vaccinating athletes hasn't been an open discussion in this country
the fear of seeming to jump a cue is real.
On the worry list as well
what happens with the two men
who've worked with Warner since they were his high school basketball coaches?
They still aren't sure they'll be allowed to go to the Games.
Yeah, it's it's still up in the air.
I'm hoping that I get to go.
I think it makes a big difference any advantage matters at the Olympics.
[Adrienne] Canada has seen a lot of success at the Summer Games from its swimmers.
Fractions of seconds
putting the likes of Kylie Masse and Brent Hayden on the podium
and yet this is how both of them
and other members of Team Canada
spent months training for Tokyo.
Lucky enough to have access to pools of any kind
if you can count swimming in the snow lucky.
For a long time, most Canadian swimmers didn't even have this.
Former Olympian and coach Byron Macdonald has been more than a little frustrated.
What most people don't know about the Canadian swimmers
is that they were the most locked out group of swimmers in the world
where the swimmers were out 13 weeks back in the spring-summer of 2020
and I know the top American swimmers several of them they had access to private pools
and they didn't miss a day
the Aussies were out for about four weeks
the Italians, the Brits yeah a little bit longer than that.
We were out 13 and that's a long time.
What do you expect the performance consequence of this to be?
The million-dollar question.
The one wild card in this mix is they haven't raced in 12 months
so we're gonna be race shy going into the Olympic Games.
I think it's the only thing that worries me and the athletes and the coaches a little bit
quarantine periods have been adjusted for the NHL
for some executives in Canada
but not Olympic athletes.
So, heading to international competitions hasn't been practical
or even possible for many of them
and if it's been hard to wrangle training for individual athletes
spare a thought for the teams out there.
[Adrienne]The pandemic delay split up Canada's softball team
forced them to train apart, to get creative
and while they are excited
the worry is they might be rusty.
That got tested in a game on the weekend.
Saturday when we played
that was our first real game in 20 months
since we qualified in 2019 we hadn't been on the field.
Okay that's crazy.
It's a long time.
When you think we have not we've played softball and pretty much every day of our lives
since five years old
we've never taken a break
and all of a sudden in the biggest time
the last push of some taking a 20 month break
from playing together is pretty crazy.
[Adrienne] They're together now in Florida
but watching the clock nervously
because softball has an added layer of anxiety to it.
This is the first time the sport is back in the Olympics since 2008.
A 2020 delay was hard enough but if the Games don't go ahead this summer
that might mark the end for many of them training all these years
for what?
We're just constantly on an emotional roller coaster
especially at the beginning when they were just so many unknowns
right now we are all systems go it's happening everything's great
so if something does fall apart it's just going to open up a whole can of worms
[Adrienne] 100 days out until someone tells them otherwise Canada's athletes
are all hope and effort on the road to Tokyo.
Sometimes people think like being a professional athlete is glamorous
and then you come into places like this
and see how we're training and compromising
[Adrienne] They'll all be as ready as they can be
on uncharted training for unparalleled games,
the key now is to make sure they're not just strong enough but safe enough.