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How are athletes coping with lockdown?

Harry Galbraith
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How are athletes coping with the lockdown   flickr

The COVID-19 pandemic has put sports on hold around the world, with many athletes missing out on a big portion of their respective seasons.

The COVID-19 pandemic has put all sports on hold across the globe, leaving athletes in limbo with how their season will play out, if at all.

In New Zealand, everyone is in lockdown, so sports teams across the country are having to deal with not being able to train together and compete.

Beth Ross is a part of the NZ women’s coxed eight rowing team which was preparing for the Olympics.

Ross says it's disappointing that they must wait so long without any competition because it's hard to get a gauge of where the crews at.

She says the team are staying motivated by sending each other photos and videos of their workouts from their bubbles.

In a different situation is long-distance runner Taonga Mbambo, on a scholarship at La Salle University in Philadelphia.

He says the hardest part about not competing is there is no end goal or product right now, so he's just training to stay in shape.

The motivation comes from his teammates in the US.  He knows they will be training as hard as they can so he doesn’t want to slack off and let them down by not training.

Local Ashburton College basketballer Willie Joyce said he was not fazed about the current lack of basketball, but was staying motivated by watching a film to improve his game.