With tears in her eyes, Nadine Apetz asked herself “why not one more day?”
The German boxer had waited four years, and a ticket to the Tokyo Olympics was tantalizingly close when the qualifying tournament in London was suspended because of the coronavirus outbreak.
“One day longer and I might have had it,” said Apetz, a 34-year-old welterweight who is studying for a doctorate in neuroscience. “I was crying because I was so disappointed. You are so close to your biggest goal, and it’s all stopped.”
The pandemic has forced many Olympic hopefuls to wait it out, but the delay is particularly painful for the European boxers who were on the verge of qualification last month.