Christine Sinclair with Stephen Brunt - Playing the Long Game : A Memoir

Looking back, I think we were perfectly built for a pandemic Olympics.

The thing that has always separated the Canadian womens national soccer team from other teams is how close we are, how connected we are, how much we enjoy each others company. Athletes like to talk about how they have a great team culture. Ours is unique, in my experience, and not just the most recent version. Its a culture that was built over the years. During the pandemic, when we were locked in our hotels or the Olympic Village and couldnt even grab a coffee together at Starbucks, we could still rely on each other. We thrived on that.

When the COVID-19 lockdowns hit in March 2020, we were playing in the Tournoi de France. Things were going wellwe lost to France, beat Holland, tied Braziland it felt like we were on track to have a good Olympics in Tokyo that summer. But the world changed over the course of those few days. The tournament went from completely normal, with fans in the stands, to no fans and no handshakes by the end. I remember our team doctor saying that he didnt think COVID was going to be that big of a deal and that everyone was making more of it than they should. The next thing you know we were being told to get out of Paris as fast as we could before we were trapped there.

The day after we flew home, the NBA shut downand you know the rest.

I spent the first month of the pandemic in Florida. I had planned to go there on the way back from France to visit some friends before the start of the National Womens Soccer League (NWSL) pre-season. It was maybe not the safest place to be, given the lack of restrictions. Gyms closed for two weeks and then they reopened and everyone acted like COVID was over. I was hearing stories of teammates back in Canada who couldnt leave their houses and thinking that I had it pretty good there in the sun.

But then I went home to Portland, Oregon, and things got real.

As an athlete you are on a set schedule. You know exactly what youre doing tomorrow and the next day. Everything is planned out for you. But in the middle of the pandemic, we had to give up on that. Everything was changing so quickly. We had to let go of expectations and learn to accept that, for the time being, there were far more important things on this planet than kicking a ball around.

All our players were isolated, and all the clubs were shut down. But we chose to make the most of it. As a team we were going to use every day in the hopes that there would still be an Olympics. Our goal was to train more efficiently and effectively than our opponents despite the obstacles. We werent going let a lack of games and a lack of normal preparation become an excuse.

Our strength and conditioning coach had us doing workouts together on Zoom. Desiree Scott ran a virtual Zumba class. All of us had our own homemade gyms where we could work out as best we could with whatever equipment was available. Mine was in my garage.

And then Canada pulled out of the Olympics.

I had the same reaction Im sure a lot of athletes had: What? Really? There is going to be an Olympics and Canada is not going? Ive trained my whole life for this. If there is going to be an Olympics, theyre going to do it safely. Shouldnt we be part of it?

But within a day or two it became clear that the 2020 Games were going to be postponed for everyone.

That was at the end of March. In June, our coach, Kenneth Heiner-Mller, stepped down to take a job in Denmark, his home country. We understood. It was the right move for him and his family. His contract with the Canadian Soccer Association (CSA) ran through the Olympics, and now there werent going to be any Olympics, at least not in 2020. He had been offered his dream job. It all made sense, but it meant that we no longer had a coach. As it turned out, we wouldnt have one for a long time.

My club team, the Portland Thorns of the National Womens Soccer League, returned to training around that time to prepare for the Challenge Cup, the first bubble event in professional sports. It was distanced training. Everyone got their own little square on the field, trying to prepare to play as a team at a time when we couldnt go near other people.

Still, we were proud that the NWSL was the first professional sports league to come back and play. We were the guinea pigs, and the league made it work. We showed that it could be done, and safely.

The tournament was held in July in Salt Lake City, Utah. It was one of those situations where you had to go in with an open mind and roll with itand stay grateful just to have the opportunity to play and compete when everything else was still shut down.