Editorial: COVID-19 pandemic:A curve ball for athletes

More than 30 months since the discovery of the novel respiratory coronavirus in
2019, COVID-19 related public health orders and restrictions remain active in many
countries on the globe in late 2022. These measures, such as city lockdown, border
closure, travel restrictions, social distancing practice, and mandatory use of facemasks,
affect all segments of the population. During the pandemic, we have witnessed the
most significant disruption to the worldwide sports calendar since the World War
II. From a global perspective, many international sports events, such as The Olympic
Games Tokyo 2020, SummerWorld University Games, and theWorld Games have been
postponed; and more than 150 international sports events involving both professional
and recreational sportsmen have been canceled. In this series, we cover original articles
examining the effect of COVID-19 on the training routine and performance in five types
of athletes, including distance runners (Chan et al.), soccer/football players (Wagemans
et al.; Keemss et al.), bodybuilders (Imboden et al.; Iff et al.), volleyball players (Morath
et al.), and paralympic athletes (Busch et al.). We are aware that this field of research is
highly dynamic with new data available almost on a daily base. Hence, we aim to bemore
inclusive in this Research Topic and involve a wider scope of research questions and
different methodological approaches, which allow us a better coverage of this emerging
and evolving Research Topic.
These findings provide important information for athletes, coaches, physical trainers,
and healthcare team members to identify potential health issues that may be related to
the pandemic, plan specifically how we can minimize the negative influence, as well as
design contingency training plan for postponed tournaments.
Although COVID-19 attacks our respiratory system and potentially causes a decline
in physical condition, we observed adverse findings from the studies in this Research
Topic in terms of physical training. Iff et al. and Keemss et al. reported a pandemic
related negative impact on the physical performance in body builders and youth soccer players, respectively. In contrast, Chan et al. and Wagemans
et al. did not find any substantial differences in terms of physical
function or training intensity in professional soccer players
and recreational distance runners. Interestingly, it seems that
COVID-19 and its related public health restrictions result in a
greater influence on people’s mental than physical health. For
example, Imboden et al., Busch et al., and Iff et al. reported
that athletes exhibited poorer mood during the pandemic and
this psychological impact may indeed lead to a change in
living habits, such as increase alcoholic and cannabis intake.
From a global perspective, this Research Topic also includes an
investigation of COVID transmission within volleyball games.
Morath et al. conducted contact tracing in a professional
volleyball teamin Germany. They found that players who strictly
adhere to the recommended hygiene guidelines and regulations
during both training and matches are of lower risk contracting
the virus, but coaches and players are advised to avoid nonessential
interpersonal contacts outside the training hours to
prevent the spread of infection.
Although the guest editors would love to see more
views, downloads, and citations of papers included in
this series, we sincerely hope that athletes, coaches, and
concerning healthcare professionals do not require the
information presented in this Research Topic due to another
wave of pandemic and disruption. May COVID-19 will be soon behind us and becomes a historical terminology in
near future.