For athletes, as for everyone else, this is a time of uncertainty as they look to maintain training schedules while also remaining in lockdown. In her column this morning Sonia O'Sullivan writes about a final training session before it was banned in Australia. "For the Melbourne Track Club, there was one last roll of the dice at the Botanical Gardens last week: a record attempt around the perimeter of The Tan, the locally famous running track of 3.82km, including a 500m steep incline within the first km. It may well prove one of the last record attempts of the year," she writes. In a similar vein, Ian O'Riordan speaks to Irish runner Aoife Cooke who is trying to maintain her regime within 2km of her home to avoid using the treadmill. "Runners are no different from anyone else on that front. Living in Tower, not too far from Blarney, so it's a bit out of the city, but also quite hilly, which does make it that little bit tougher again," she says.
In the latest instalment of our favourite sporting moments series, Brian O'Connor remembers 2009 when the John Oxx-trained Sea The Stars showed us what pefection looks like. "As he passed the post at Longchamp the BBC commentator Jim McGrath described him as perfection in equine form. I blame Jim for the subsequent flight of verbal fancy," he writes.
As we approach what would usually be the Easter break around the country, Gerry Thornley looks at how underage rugby – which usually gets a stage to shine on around this time – will be affected. "While this ought not affect their pathway into the provincial academies and professional game unduly, one cannot be sure, and certainly for a good many these specific opportunities will never arise again," he writes.
In golf, Leona Maguire tells Philip Reid that she is very glad she heeded the advice of her manager Niall Horan and stayed put in Ireland rather than making a planned return to the US recently. With the LPGA Tour season suspended until further notice she can continue her practice here at her house before hopefully continuing her march up the ladder of the professional game.
In some soccer news the Premier League and English Football League yesterday stressed to the PFA how players will need to agree to pay cuts rather than just wage deferrals to help their clubs get through this crisis. Yesterday, Bournemouth manager Eddie Howe was the first top-flight manager to take a voluntary pay cut.
Finally, if you're looking for an antidote to all of the doom and gloom that's around, Dave Hannigan's column about keeping some sort of sporting normality going during the crisis is a lovely read.
