Tokyo (AFP)

To keep in physical, mental and financial shape despite the postponement of the 2020 Summer Olympics, Japanese fencing medalist Ryo Miyake climbs and descends the steep streets of Tokyo on a bicycle, weighted with a backpack from a meal delivery man to home.

At 29, a silver foil team medalist at the London 2012 Olympics, he was only in one hurry: to take part in the Olympic Games organized in his country.

"I started this for two reasons: saving to be able to travel (for future competitions) and to maintain my physical condition," he told AFP.

"I see on the screen of my phone the sums I earn but these figures are not just money for me. It is a score that keeps me moving."

The Japanese media described the young man as a poor amateur sportsman, struggling to make ends meet. But in reality, he himself asked his sponsors to suspend their funding, although this forces him to live on his savings.

Like all other Olympic athletes in the world, he is in the most complete uncertainty since the pandemic caused the unprecedented postponement of the Tokyo 2020 Olympics and disrupted the training and qualification calendar.

- Suddenly idle -

"I do not know when I will be able to resume training or when the next tournament will take place. I do not even know if I will manage to maintain my mental condition and my motivation for another year," he laments. .

"No one knows how the qualification process will go. To pretend that everything is going well would be irresponsible."

In the meantime, Ryo Miyake is happy to travel the immense capital on his bike, joining the army of delivery men of the American platform Uber, which grew up with the pandemic.

"When I have an order in the sloping districts of Akasaka or Roppongi, it gives me good training," he said during one of his trips on a sunny afternoon in May.

After missing the Rio 2016 Games, he placed 13th at the World Championships last year, placing first among the Japanese in this competition.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has set July 23, 2021 as the opening date for the postponed Games.

But in the absence of a vaccine against the new coronavirus which has caused the death of nearly 300,000 people worldwide, this date is also in doubt.

The Japanese fencing team learned of the postponement of the Olympic Games the day after their arrival in the United States for a final qualification test, said the fencer.

He found himself brutally with an agenda emptied of all training and competition, and confides having spent the entire month of April moping around wondering what he was going to be able to do. Then suddenly the idea of ​​meal deliveries came to him.

- Reason for living -

"Sports and culture inevitably fall behind when people have to survive a crisis," he said.

"Are the Olympic Games really a necessity? Why do I live if it is not for sport? That is what I kept telling myself."

But his new and temporary career as a delivery man cycling the hills of Tokyo gave him a new dynamic.

"The most immediate objective for me is to be able to start training gently when the state of emergency is lifted." For the moment I have to be physically and financially ready. "

But not all athletes will be able to take the brunt of a "nervously exhausting" pre-Olympic new year, he worries, evoking the image of someone who has just finished a marathon and who would be asked to continue.

"I like fencing. I want to be able to travel and participate in the Olympic Games. This is the only reason I do this," said the boy who trained as a boy to attack on all the walls of his house. House.

© 2020 AFP