Stacey Porter should be preparing for one of the greatest honours of her decorated career - leading her country at an Olympic games.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Instead the Australian softball captain is stuck at home in Brisbane not knowing when she will be able to hit the diamond again with sport around the world in lockdown as a result of the coronavirus crisis, and her Olympic dream on hold.
But rather than dwell on the negative, the Tamworth native is choosing to look at the positive.
For one she will have another 12 months playing the game that she loves that she mightn't have otherwise. Porter hadn't decided that Tokyo was going to be it for her, but will definitely now be pushing on with the games postponed until 2021.
That was officially confirmed by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and Tokyo 2020 Organising Committee on Tuesday night, and comes after Australia withdrew from the games.
Porter spoke of feeling a mix of emotions, but said it was the right decision.
"It's a bit weird, it's frustrating, it's good," she said.
"I'm happy that we've finally heard something and they're doing the right thing by the rest of the world considering how bad the state of affairs is in the world at the moment."
"And I'm really glad that it's a postponement and it's not a cancellation."
She admitted the latter was something she did fear.
That being said, despite rumblings for a few weeks that the games wouldn't be able to go ahead as planned (they were scheduled to start on July 24) it wasn't really until last week that Porter started to think that it could actually happen.
I was holding a fair bit of hope, until the last few days
- Stacey Porter
Having spent a lot of time in Japan over the years, she knew that the country would be doing everything in it's power to ensure there was no risk to the athletes.
"I was holding a fair bit of hope, until the last few days," she said.
"[But] Health is paramount in this situation.
"And you know another 12 months, look at how much better we can be "
While all that was happening Porter was also waiting to hear about the Japanese League, which she plays for SG Holdings in.
"We were meant to start our league this coming weekend - the 28th and 29th - but we found about three weeks ago that they were postponing the first two weeks of our league," she said.
READ ALSO:
They were then given a new start date of April 10/11 but have now officially cancelled the first half of the league.
The news came as a bit of a relief with airlines starting to shut down flights and travel restrictions only getting stricter.
Porter admits it quite a stressful few days.
"It was just a lot of unknown, which is hard to plan and all that sort of stuff," she said.
There is still a lot of uncertainty ahead but Porter is remaining optimistic.
"I'm probably one of those glass half full people and hope that in the next few months we will be able to get back out there and do some things," she said.
For now though the challenge is maintaining her fitness and skills, ready for when they get the green light to play again.
They have been told to cease 'official' training for the time being, and with gyms currently closed, it means for the moment she will have to find alternative ways to stay in peak condition.
She said they are currently looking at a maintenance plan and the strength and conditioning coach was in the process of working out a program.
"They're giving us a little break from skills but I would assume that we will be able to ramp that back up and hopefully by the time I can travel and head back to Japan we'll be back on the field, and getting back into it," she said.
