Covid very quickly came into our lives and shook things up changing our lives immensely. Not least for sports athletes as competitive sports were taken away from us for a very long period of time.
Those in the sports world that play indoor sports suffered the most as they saw the longest time to get back to regular activity.
However, Sheffield Hallam’s Men’s basketball team found a way to make the best of the bad situation. “We had to make use of our surrounding and found outdoor courts that everyone on the team could access.”-Miles Victory Basketball Captain. As if things weren’t already a struggle, they still found it hard to train because “The weather made it hard and we had to miss a lot of sessions due to rain or wet courts.”
The main way that teams were told what they could and couldn’t do was through their governing bodies. Victory said their Governing body (British Basketball Federation) “Didn’t capture the importance of basketball as a mental and physical aid for young athletes.”
Naturally the governing bodies wanted to get athletes back to playing but also keep them safe yet a lot of athletes from a range of sports feel the same as Victory did and believe they could have done more to help them get back quicker or put things in place to aid the speed of returning to play. Victory did also state that they could’ve “made regulations clearer so everyone was on the same page.”
Through the duration and to the end of Covid peoples lives and lifestyles had completely changed, when it came to being back playing Hallams team saw a big impact, “Some players didn’t come back” which left them in a mode of recreating the team and starting with a lot of new players. This then lead to “Lack of chemistry and performance due to the players not knowing each other and playing as a team.”
Being back to playing has boosted moral of lots of people Victory said; “It was nice to training session and socialise with the team again.” Next season Hallam will face off in Men’s Division One and they have very high aims they want to; “Do the best as we can in the cup, Try to gain promotion, Win the Championship and develop as individual players.” Not only are these high aims to achieve but even harder after a year off from playing.
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