Omicron and the difficulties of training and traveling during the pandemic!
In this episode, Coaches César Valentim and Peter Nestler discuss the newest Covid wave and what does it mean to high-performance teams. People are vaccinated, got their booster shots, yet we have a partial lockdown. How are teams dealing with these restrictions? What does this mean to the events on the calendar?
This episode is all about training and travel arrangements, the following episodes will follow the ranked competitions and the first challenges of the year for most teams.
This podcast is supported by Hawkin Dynamics and Athlete Analyzer!
Visit our Instagram @taekwondopodcast and Facebook @taekwondocast
Omicron and the difficulties of training and traveling during the pandemic!
In this episode, Coaches César Valentim and Peter Nestler discuss the newest Covid wave and what does it mean to high-performance teams. People are vaccinated, got their booster shots, yet we have a partial lockdown. How are teams dealing with these restrictions? What does this mean to the events on the calendar?
This episode is all about training and travel arrangements, the following episodes will follow the ranked competitions and the first challenges of the year for most teams.
This podcast is supported by Hawkin Dynamics and Athlete Analyzer!
Visit our Instagram @taekwondopodcast and Facebook @taekwondocast
Have you been looking for a Teon do podcast with qualified people who know what they're talking about, who help you keep up with everything going on in the Teon do world? Well, you found it. This is the Teon do podcast. Teon do news competitions in a of the events training in sports science, keeping the fans, coaches and high performance athletes up to date with the latest news and trends on Olympic TaeKwonDo. Let's do this. This is the TaeKwonDo podcast. And now your host coach Caesar Valenti team and Peter Nestle.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to the Teon do podcast. We are a podcast plays out of Austria in English language for everyone out there who likes Teon the coaches, the athletes, sports scientists, the fans, and their families. On this episode, we will take a look at one of the most concerning facts of the year. The Omnichron wave. Welcome to our podcast. I'm coach Caesar Valenti, and with me as coach Peter Nestler. Hello, Peter, how are you? We are recording this episode with enough distance between each other, but we are vaccinated. We got our booster shots yet. We have a partial lockdown here in Austria. How you're dealing with these restrictions are you to keep your Teon school running?
Speaker 3:Uh, that depends. Um, hello everybody. Um, due to the measures, uh, set by the government, we have to close down the facilities every, uh, well, let me say every few months. Uh, so the, the, the broad basis of the Teknor, the, the, the chair and all, all that stuff is not running on a normal basis all the time. Um, the teams, so like professional athletes, they can still do their training, but on the special restrictions. Uh, so it depends like for the structure of, from the clubs, it's not easy because the, the main income comes from, from the classes you have with children, you have with all the adults. And so the normal stuff, um, but you still have to run your professional team. So it's, uh, really not difficult, but we set up a good, uh, a copied protocol, which was, uh, proven. Um, so I don't see a problem in that. It's maybe a little financial problem, but we have some fundings from the government. So all in all we could manage, but it's not easy.
Speaker 2:That is actually the difficulty between, uh, the countries who have the back, uh, support from the go government and the countries who don't also other countries don't have as many restrictions as Austria or others have more. So it's a little bit unfair when it comes to, it comes to when it comes to prepare the athletes, if they are able to train as well. And as much as, uh, in other countries, the training restrictions, mostly in Austria affect the non-professional athletes or the non international level athletes, our competition at athletes, they can compete, they can train, they can travel, but they also follow different rules in Austria. They actually don't enforce the vaccination for the professional athletes, but in our case, in my club, they decided to take, uh, the vaccine and the booster shots for all the adults allows us to, to travel more easily. It allows us to go to other countries across the board and come back without having to do quarantines. And that's mostly the main reason behind, uh, the vaccination for the competition team is not only, uh, health reason. It's also logistical, uh, reasoning that you allows you to do all these travel arrangements in a, a easier manner. Uh, and standard, for example, you are not enforced to take the vaccine, but you are not allowed to stay in some hotels if you don't have the vaccine. So logistically, uh, it's easier if you are vaccinated. And so far, all of the team that has, they had no side effects, so we are quite safe with it financially. You are correct. It's um, we have support, we have support from the government. We are allowed actually to continue, uh, with the restrictions and don't have so many people in training because we have, uh, financial support in terms of, uh, some funding for the salaries of the staff members. Um, we have all the trainers, everyone is, uh, uh, full-time or part-time employed in the club, gets some extra money. Um, the unemployed, uh, people do get some support as long as they follow the restrictions and they follow the, the measure that are in place. But, uh, also in terms of, uh, club sustainability, it wouldn't be possible without the government, but it's also, uh, those fundings are available for those who are big. Those who have a structure, if you're a part-time club that did most of the stuff out of your basement and without a real, um, bookkeeping without, um, inventories, without all these things, without paying fixed rents it's, or at least being able to prove that you have those expenses, it's a little bit harder to, to get, uh, access to those fundings. And in other countries, there is no funding at all. I know the cases of other countries in Europe, especially outside of Europe, that funding is just not there. You are not allowed to have training, and you are not allowed to have, uh, any funding that is of course, uh, uh, way worse for people involved in te Kondo. And I think in the long term, um, you will see, uh, uh, decrease in the participation numbers as personal experience. I know that my teams, the cadets and the, and before cadets, so everyone under 14 were not allowed to train because they don't count as professional athletes. They are allowed to train as, uh, normal regular members in, uh, any other sports, uh, organization. And those were the ones who were at home for nine out of the 12 months last year. And even this year, they're not even allowed to train with contact. Those who are an exceptional list, they are recognized by the government. And those are really, really just a few we're talking about less than 1% of the memberships in most of the clubs, in some clubs, none of the memberships, uh, allows training is not possible. And the, and access to financial, um, support for those clubs also harder. So I guess that, uh, it will be in the long run. You will, you'll notice a decrease in the memberships. I know that all my cadet team was set back like five years. I have to build them all over. Again, most of them, they don't wanna have online trading after spending entire day having online lessons for their high school or their middle school. So asking for one extra hour or having some outdoor training in the country where there is right now, minus six degrees outside, it's not so, so con convenient and not so comfortable. So those are the ones will, uh, will, uh, um, suffer the most. And the clubs as a pathway or as a pipeline of players for the future is hard. If you are basically clock to the beginning, if the source is not working, if you don't have the kids in the early teens or preteens, uh, training, at least with some, um, regular training, they will not later on be able to move into a competition team. So right now I do have my seniors and my juniors training, but I have almost no cadets and I will have to build, um, 3, 4, 5 of, uh, children and proteins until I have my U 14, uh, uh, working the, the same about the travel. There is no camps outside. There is not events with them on the weekends. There is no contact with other teams, the restrictions in terms of, um, competitions for the non, uh, high level athletes. We do have a lot of, of G tournaments world and the, uh, Olympic ranking events, but there's not so many events for those that are not at that level. And if you don't have at least on the base level, if you don't have, uh, people practicing people, competing doing some, uh, exchange training camps with other teams, the pipeline will dry. The source will be, uh, empty, and we will have to have, um, a team in the future. How do you see that?
Speaker 3:Um, I think there will be, uh, quite a lot long term, uh, effects we have from the COVID crisis. One is a very basic one. The less the people move, the more unhealthy they are and long term. So if you keep out people like children in the age of 6, 7, 8 years, where the, the development of them with their body starts, uh, that's a very bad part to do. Uh, some of them now had two years, almost two years, no movement like from the, the bed to the fridge or whatever. Um, the clubs are doing an enormous, uh, job on the, on the health system. So that's not, not only for Teon it's for the whole whole business in, in sports, at least in our country. Uh, I guess in all other countries as well, the it's not about the professional sports. It's about the broad basis of people doing some kind of movement and they are not allowed to do so now. So this is one of them. The other one is, um, as you said, um, the profess teams keep, uh, training in some countries like almost normal. They can have their camps within their country. Some countries have a broad participation in KIRO. And, uh, so you could, well, you could stay for a long time in, in your country and have no need to get outside in a, not the case. It's a small country. And, uh, you have to search for, for camps abroad and, um, develop your team with, with the foreign teams. That's very important. And if travel restrictions are, are here and, uh, we are not allowed to have training in our country, it will really, um, the, the basis will, will be, will be cut. So in the next years, we will see how many young athletes we will bring through to the seniors. Let's see most
Speaker 2:Of the structures that we have, uh, worldwide in terms of te Kondo. They are basically the TaeKwonDo school, the Mets, uh, some, uh, kicking targets. And that's it yet the fitness duties were some of the first things who close and, uh, and, and not the, the case with any of us, we do have access to our, uh, strengths and conditioning facilities, but most of the clubs they work with strength and conditioning facilities that are outside. They are, um, um, mostly fitness studios and of fitness studios are closed. And if the ones in Austria 200 more than 200 are closed already, it makes it a little harder to have access to them. I can imagine in the rest of the, of the world, I really hope that, uh, the situation gets a little bit better and that, uh, um, people are allowed to train not only TaeKwonDo, but in full package. And as you mentioned correctly, the health system depends, uh, also on the sports system. And if people are not allowed to do movement, they're not allowed to train. They don't have, uh, physical activity, uh, classes in the school. It's gonna be a little bit, uh, complicated for the future. The long terms effect, uh, of COVID is not, uh, for seen yet. We have, uh, to do a lot in terms of sport development, athletic development on all ages. Thank you, Peter.
Speaker 3:Welcome.
Speaker 1:You're listening to the, Techon do podcast now back to your hosts, coach Caesar, Valenti team and Peter Nestler.
Speaker 2:So we talked about, uh, the uncertainty and all to financial restrictions and all these training restrictions. What do you think can be done, uh, at least until the rest of the year for, uh, to remediate all of these things, first
Speaker 3:Of all, uh, what, what could you do as a club, uh, do your homework set up structures, um, deliver everything that's, that's mandatory to just, uh, keep up the, the most training you could get. So if government says you have to do that to keep your training up, do it, please do it. It's not only important for you. It's important for the, the health of the people. Uh, it's not, not only about Teon really, uh, believe me. Um, it's, it's a broad basis. You will lose if you lose the, the, the children, the carrots, whatever. Um, it's not the adults. They come back in the immediately after, uh, you close the school and you re reopen, um, it's about the long term basis. You, you, you have, uh, with, with all the children's training. And so, um, do your homework, follow the restrictions, um, and keep up your training. As far as you could get it.
Speaker 2:We mentioned that the competitions are mostly for the high level athletes, and there is no competitions or no circuits for the base. Who do you think should worry about? That is something that the clubs should do is something that national Federation should do, or do you think it should go into a bigger umbrella and should actually be the continental unions considering, uh, already some leagues or at least some for the color belts?
Speaker 3:Well, it's, uh, it is a deal for everybody. So the, the federations in the moment, I'm a little skeptical. They, they<laugh> since, uh, COVID breakouts, uh, they were not too active. The national federations, the, there is now a full calendar of, of, of top events. Yes, that's true. But, uh, during the last, uh, one and a half years, so, or too many activities, um, also you have to, you have to build, um, you have to get to the, to, to the politic and tell them that it's important to keep up sports every day. That's very important. Um, the continental federations, um, they kept up their good work. Uh, so that's, that's fine. And I think that's good. There will be new ideas, as you told the leagues, there might be some ideas and we will fully support those things, uh, because we see we, we have to get some trigger to, to get back on a normal pace.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Peter. Uh, it was, uh, nice chatting with you about such a, uh, contemporary problem, the<inaudible> variant and, uh, that all the restrictions that come to it, the next episodes will be a little more exciting for the listeners, because we will talk about the ranking systems that, uh, exists the Olympic and world ranking, but also, uh, go a little bit about the national rankings, where they exist and how they do it. We'll also talk about the next competitions. The next episodes will be already in when the competition season is in the middle, or at least started, we'll talk about Turkish, open president's cup, Fuji, and all these events. So the next event, the next episodes will be a lot more active, a lot more about the competitions itself, not about the problem that the clubs are having. It was a pleasure being here with you, and it would everyone listening. This was the Teon do podcast. If you haven't already listened to our other episodes, they're already available. Wherever you listen to your podcasts. We are releasing new episodes. Every Tuesday, stay tuned, subscribe to the podcast, leave us a positive review and share it with your friends. See you next time
Speaker 1:You've been listening to the Teon do podcast. Keeping the fans coach is and high performance athletes up to date with the latest news and trends on Olympic TaeKwonDo. Your host coach Caesar Valenti team has almost 20 years of experience with high performance TaeKwonDo and has worked all around the world. As a TaeKwonDo trainer. Peter Nestler has been teaching TaeKwonDo for more than 20 years, and he is currently one of the top referees in Europe. We hope you enjoyed the show, make sure to like rate and review and we'll be back soon. But in the meantime, find us on Instagram at tech. One do podcast on Facebook at tech, one do cast and the website tech one DOE podcast.com. See you next time. Okay.