Kévin Mayer would like the Tokyo Olympics to be postponed
Decathlon world record holder Kévin Mayer favors postponement of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games (July 24-August 9) due to the coronavirus pandemic.
"I would really like them to postpone the Games, not to cancel them. I believe that is what they want to do with Euro football," Mayer told the French sports daily.
"I do not have the necessary medical information and knowledge. But I am very mathematical and according to the graphs that I see, the pandemic is far from having reached its peak and I do not see how we could be completely out by July, "he continued.
"This obviously poses a problem of sports equity between those who have or will have had access to normal training and competitions," said the 2017 world champion.
Mayer, 28, has yet to clinch her qualification for the Olympic Games after his retirement from injury at the 2019 World Championships in Doha.
But his training conditions will deteriorate with the expected closure of CREPS Montpellier on Tuesday, and he does not yet know where he can line up in competition to try to obtain his qualification for Tokyo.
"My principle at the moment is: I train as best I can, even if I don't have a defined competition in front of me and I will be happy when there is one. But I don't prefer to make a fake hopes for the Games, "he admitted.
While more than 169,710 cases of infection and 6,640 deaths were counted Monday in 142 countries around the world, Mayer recognizes that the Olympic Games and more generally the sport have now come to the fore for him.
"Sports events are enormously valuable when everything is going well, but, faced with a pandemic, they are no longer too much. People no longer have that spirit. In any case, I don't don't have it, "he concluded.