Euronews producer Camille Bello spoke to her sister Zoe Bello, a triathlete who has been training under lockdown in Seville.
Professional sport has virtually shut down around the world, with many athletes facing the prospect of months without being able to compete. But a bigger problem facing elite sportspeople has been how to maintain their fitness during this period.
Even as some countries begin to ease lockdown rules, most athletes still lack access to training grounds and gyms, as well as their own teams and coaches.
Indoor Zoom-based swimming practices, static running, or virtual group cycling, have been some of the innovative strategies athletes have employed to stay at the top of their game.
Zoe Bello, a triathlete in Spain, has shared with Euronews a video diary of her daily life as a professional athlete during the COVID-19 lockdown. You can watch it by clicking play on the video player above.
For Bello, the pandemic has given her a previously unimaginable training scheme, “I would have never, not in my wildest dreams, imagined having a swimming practice on Zoom,” she said to Euronews.
“I don’t know when I will be able to go back to the pool. Before Coronavirus, I was at the best level I’d been in my life and now it’s going to be a huge setback,” she added.
According to Bello, the main challenge is staying motivated, “all the competitions have been cancelled, there’s no clear horizon.”
Despite Spains ban on cycling and running recently being lifted, training dynamics are still “very complicated,” and a normal training schedule “is nowhere to be seen,” Bello says.
A few positive things, however, have emerged from the lockdown, Bello cites her improved performance as a cyclist, a result of her almost daily logging sessions on Zwift, an indoor cycling app that blends online training with the fun of video games.
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