Two-time Olympic gold medallist Lisa Carrington says there are "conflicting" feelings around yesterday's announcement that the Tokyo Games have been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.
Carrington told TVNZ1's Breakfast this morning she, like many athletes both from New Zealand and abroad, are slowly coming to the realisation their goals that have been four years in the making are now on hold.
"There's a lot of mixed emotions," Carrington said.
"Firstly, it's just impacted on the build-up and expectation of when things would happen - I was expecting to race along with many other athletes.
"But then there's the fact we have to look after each other and stop the spread of this virus so it's a conflicting one, I think, and all around the world, it's a tough time."
Carrington said she will continue to train while the Tokyo Olympics are rescheduled but there will be some time before things get back to normal.
"Because it's just happened, it's going to take a little bit of time to really understand how we go forward.
"I think we just need to take a little time to digest it and fully understand what is ahead of us and be really innovative with training because, in a way, it's really difficult to stop what we're doing so we just to find new ways of doing it."
Training for Carrington and many other Kiwi athletes will be a new experience over the next month, with New Zealand now in lockdown after the Government raised our Covid-19 response to level four earlier this week. Today marks the first day of the nationwide lockdown.
But Carrington said she isn't too worried about her programme.
"I've got a bit of equipment at home and I guess, at times, that ability to go outside and exercise so I think it's just scaling things back and just being a bit innovative because we can't do those things we always do - we can't train in groups or train with our coach watching.
"But I've managed to set up a few things in my garage over the next month."
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