Covid-19: Chad Le Clos forced to quit luxury Mediterranean training base
Chad Le Clos landed to an uncertain future in Cape Town this week after the rampant coronavirus forced him to beat a hasty retreat from his training base in Turkey.
On Monday, he thought his immediate future was mapped out, bunkering down at his Energy Standard team’s luxurious quarters at the Gloria sports arena on the Mediterranean coast.
But that was turned on its head the next day when head coach James Gibson announced they would have to leave.
“He almost wanted to cry,” Le Clos told the Sunday Times.
“He comes in, says ‘guys, there’s no easy way to say this, we’ve had meetings with people who are high up in Turkey and we have to close the programme’.
“On Monday the plan was to stay six, seven weeks. Suddenly, the country is going into lockdown and hotels are probably going to be closed. We had 36 hours to get out.
“Luckily I got tickets the same night. It’s such a whirlwind. One minute you’re training hard, everything’s gone great, and then you guys have to leave.”
Le Clos will have to train on his own in Cape Town, probably at a gym pool.
“There’s no real plan going forward. I have no coach, no training partners. I could be stuck here until the Olympics,” he said.
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