{"id":591203,"date":"2024-07-22T11:47:14","date_gmt":"2024-07-22T18:47:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=591203"},"modified":"2024-07-22T11:47:14","modified_gmt":"2024-07-22T18:47:14","slug":"return-of-fans-olympic-experience-herald-normalcy-for-veterans-at-paris-olympics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/return-of-fans-olympic-experience-herald-normalcy-for-veterans-at-paris-olympics\/","title":{"rendered":"Return of Fans, Olympic Experience Herald Normalcy for Veterans at Paris Olympics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return of Fans, Olympic Experience Herald Normalcy for Veterans at Paris Olympics<\/strong><\/p>\n

In a sense, everyone was a rookie at the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. There was no precedent for an Olympics, already postponed a year, to be held during a global pandemic. With no overseas fans, no family, an impermeable bubble, social distancing in the athlete village and daily COVID-19 testing, even athletes who had been to Rio five years prior had little more than context of what was missing in the Tokyo\u2019s photo-negative version of an Olympics.<\/p>\n

As the world prepares to convene for a more typical Olympics in Paris<\/a>, the lessons of the past are confined to memory, but they\u2019re not easily discarded.<\/p>\n

Katie Ledecky<\/strong>, for one, takes the positives from her time in Tokyo. Stressful as they were, Ledecky hopes that some of the caution of those Games, to stay healthy and fit, is preserved in Paris when distractions are more readily available athletes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we’re all looking forward to a non-COVID Olympics, just not having to stress as much about some of those little things,\u201d Ledecky said after U.S. Olympic Trials in Indianapolis last month. \u201cBut honestly, there are probably some things that we did well in 2021 that we can continue to do this year, like staying healthy on these trips. We are going to be together for a long stretch, so continuing to follow best practices there is important.\u201d<\/p>\n