Daily Routine: Five things to do - 17 April 2020
Olympic Channel gives you five things to stay active and entertained today, including laughing, home workouts, and Mikaela Shiffrin singing
In today’s Daily Routine we have found inspiration from around the internet, to keep you active and entertained in isolation.
From reading, to exercising, and even just listening, the coronavirus outbreak has provided an opportunity for individuals to grow in unexpected ways.
We here at Olympic Channel are sharing inspiring and emotional moments to help us all stay safe, strong and healthy.
Here are five things for today.
- Sing
Mikaela Shiffrin opening for KT Tunstall?
Where do we sign up...
Goggles for Docs
So what's it all about?
With the coronavirus pandemic sweeping across the world there are many hospitals lacking in equipment that protect them from catching the virus.
One of the known ways
'Goggles for Docs' helps by donating ski and other sports goggles to help keep healthcare workers safe.
As the official website explains:
"Goggles for Docs is an effort to get used or new goggles into the hands of healthcare workers who currently have no eye protection as they treat COVID-19 patients."
- Home Workouts
Here's a collection of ideas for you
today from all the Olympians who have been sending us workouts to help keep you on your toes:
We've been showcasing the top home workouts on this special page every day, as we encourage everyone to #StayHealthy, #StayStrong, and #StayActive.
Here's another...
Fancy footwork
Need to get those feet moving?
Team USA's Olympic bronze medal-winning boxer Marlen Esparza has great footwork drills for boxers and non-boxers alike.
"Everything you do in the ring comes from the bottom up," so get your feet right first, and get a great workout in.
Home workout no equipment
Need cardio?
These two have put a great workout together:
- What to watch today
Want to see the future stars of sports?
Olympic Channel has crossed the globe in search of the next generation of global stars, and you can watch all 28
episodes of 'Heroes of the Future' right here.
No fee, no subscription, just watch.
Is 12-year-old Brazilian footballer Lucianinho the next Neymar?
South Korean teen figure skater You Young is already proving her talent, but can Jamaica's latest sprint sensation Joanne Reid live up to the billing as one of Bolt's successors?
Puerto Rico has another star in the
making, can boxing prodigy Lionel Colon add to his country's legacy?
His father says he was born to box.
And don't forget, we're bringing back all the games from the USA basketball Dream Team at Barcelona 1992.
- Read
Control the controllable
Staying positive mentally is just as important as staying active mentally in times of lockdown and quarantine.
Attitude and mindset will make all the difference to how athletes come out of this global shutdown.
Japanese wrestler Risako Kawai seems to have come up with the perfect outlook in isolation.
"There was a part of me that wasn't ready for the news," Risako said. "But I switched gears and decided to think that I've been given more personal time so that means more time to get better."
Turning a negative into a positive, Kawai has started researching opponents, watching their videos and noting weaknesses, and visualizing match scenarios.
"I can't do, but I can watch," says the 25-year-old.
At Rio 2016 Kawai exploded onto the scene winning the 63-kg gold medal in her debut Games, avoiding 58kg so she wouldn't have to fight and four-time Olympic women's wrestling champion Kaori Icho.
One of our favourite moments at the 2016 Olympics was when she body'slammed her coach - twice!
"All I do is take in one day at a time," she says.
You can read more in
The 99-year-old who remembers the last time the Olympics was cancelled
While the Tokyo 2020 Olympics have not been cancelled, just moved to 2021, 99-year-old Herb Douglas has a story to tell.
He's the oldest living African American Olympic medallist and remembers what it was like when the Olympics were cancelled in 1944 because of a world at war.
Inspired by the immortal Jesse Owens at the 1963 Berlin Olympics, Herb Douglas had the chance to meet his hero when he was 14.
After a speech at the Watts Elementary School in Pittsburgh, Owens met Douglas and put his arm around his shoulders, "go get a college education," Owens said to Douglas.
He did - at the University of Pittsburgh, and made the U.S. team at Olympic trials for the 1944 Olympics.
"When the Olympics were canceled in 1944," Douglas told ESPN, "those of us who had a strong desire to make the team handled it in different ways."
"Some athletes would lay back and wait until they heard something when the Olympics would be held. I was a little different. I continued training -- harder than I ever trained, twice a day."
"You have to adjust yourself to the conditions if you wanted to make the Olympic team, stand on the podium and win an Olympic medal. You adjust yourself to train harder. I had been praying every night that I make the Olympic team and score a medal for the United States."
In 1948 Douglas was part of a group of athletes that wanted to "show the world that African Americans could compete like anybody else in the world. We could run, jump and throw as well as anybody, not just in the United States, but in the world."
Douglas' dream came true when he won long jump bronze at London 1948.
"Harrison Dillard won the 100 meters, Willie Steele won my event, long jump -- it was indescribable satisfaction that we could prove to the world that we could compete."
Douglas has words of advice for today's athletes who are struggling with the Olympic postponement:
"If I were one of the Olympic hopefuls today, I'd keep training. This will give me ample time to get in better shape. You can always get better by training, by concentrating on what you did right and what you did wrong."
From pro riding to delivering medicine to the elderly
Pro cyclist Davide Martinelli is putting his cycling skills to good use during lockdown in Italy.
The Astana rider is a one-man peloton and courier service, delivering food and medicines to the elderly in his home village who can’t get out due to the coronavirus quarantine.
There are no shops or a pharmacy in Lodetto, near Brescia in Lombardy - so the pro cyclist has been riding to the nearby town of Rovato, picking up medicine for an elderly couple.
“It all started thanks to a group of Lodettesi boys including my cousin Stefano,” Martinelli wrote on Instagram, “who organised themselves for the delivery of medicines and food to people, especially the elderly, who cannot go to Rovato to buy them.
“I have heard various stories that have touched me, people unable to get out but thanks to these volunteers have solved their problems! Over the years I have received so much from my community but I hardly had a chance to repay because of the life that often leads me to be away from home.
- Listen: From Armed Robber to Ironman
If you're going to listen to one thing today, make it this.
John McAvoy spent the first part of his life committing crimes and bouncing in and out of prisons.
Now he's an Ironman triathlete who’s broken world records in indoor rowing and been given an official pardon by the UK government.
McAvoy vowed to change his ways when his friend died in a car chase.
He left behind a criminal life of chasing money to focus on motivating and inspiring people.
“If you gave me the option between winning a gold medal at the Olympics, or sacrificing my whole athletic career to stop one kid going to prison: I’d sacrifice everything,” he said to the Olympic Channel Podcast.
Listen to the entire thing here.