Player's Own Voice In Studio: Is it next year yet?
Best guesses for the coming months after a year of challenge and change
Practically every Canadian athlete has been living in limbo for a full year now.
That is a long stretch of time and isolation to spend stewing over what might come next. Player's Own Voice in Studio is sifting through a cooped-up year for athletes to see what can be learned. So much changed for competitors during COVID-19. What's going to stick?
CBC Sports co-hosts Signa Butler and Anastasia Bucsis challenge two athlete leaders to a substantial conversation about the year to come. Erica Wiebe, the reigning 75 kg freestyle wrestling champion, and Team Canada forward Sarah Nurse weigh in on the patterns emerging from the cancellation and confusion.
Almost everyone agrees that athlete activism is here to stay. Players assumed leading roles in social justice causes this year, and that's one genie that isn't likely to go back in the bottle.
Everywhere, athletes developed individual resiliency. Tik Tok and Instagram are bursting at the seams with creative workout workarounds.
While the pandemic brought about an economic 'Shecession' hurting women disproportionately, women's teams (and especially soccer) saw better audience numbers. Professional opportunities for women in sport either improved or faced heated pressure.
Pandemic protocols, which vary from country to country, brought new scrutiny to standards of international competition. North American women's hockey went quiet in 2020 — will that give other nations a chance to catch up? Can a European team challenge the dominance of Canada-U.S.?
And if that's a bit serious for your tastes, this episode concludes with The POV quiz — a quick and dirty roundup of everything you never thought to ask two of Canada's premiere competitors.
WATCH | Wiebe and Nurse on what's next for Canadian athletes:
Player's Own Voice in Studio is the newest way that CBC Sports audiences can get to know the inner life of athletes, following in the path of Player's Own Voice podcast and the Player's Own Voice personal writing series.
