Double national shot put record holder Danniel Thomas-Dodd is hopeful there will be “a safe” Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan, next year but concedes that the situation is not one that can be easily controlled.

The Olympic Games should have been held this year but was postponed by the organisers by 12 months due to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic. However, even now there are concerns whether the globe’s largest sporting event will be allowed to be staged if the pandemic is not brought under control.

Thomas-Dodd, who failed to get past the first round of the event four years ago when the event was hosted by Rio de Janeiro, will be seeking to add an Olympic medal to her World Championships and World Indoors silver medals if the Tokyo Games gets the go-ahead.

“No one really has any control over what happens or will happen,” she told the Jamaica Observer. “I can only hope that with them having a year to come up with ways for how to have a safe Olympic Games, even come up with procedures that will ensure that the athletes and fans are safe. At this point I can only hope and pray that it will be in 2021 as planned. Some sports have already started without fans, so I am optimistic that they will find a way to make it work.”

The Commonwealth Games and Pan-American Games champion got off to her usual fast start to the season with a big 19.18m to win an event in Marietta, Georgia, on Saturday, and said: “It is definitely among the better meets I’ve had good results; last season my second meet for the outdoor season I had a personal record of 19.48m, so it is not the furthest I’ve thrown this early.”

Formerly a National Collegiate Athletics Association (NCAA) Division One outdoors champion while at Kent State University, she is now based in South Carolina, and is being coached by her husband Shane, a move she said “was natural”.

“I am being coached full-time by my husband Shane Dodd, who had been facilitating me for years but was never my coach per se,” she told the Observer. “He was the one who oversaw my workouts in the off seasons which led to success during the season, so the switch was natural.”

With the spectre of the COVID-19 pandemic hovering over just about everything, she said it had been difficult staying positive and striking a balance and working hard. “I agree it definitely is a weird season. I’ve been coping by keeping a positive mind and not being too hard on myself. I have been taking this time to work on some of my weaknesses in my technique and overall I am just happy that I was able to get any competition at all and I am trying to have some fun while I’m at it because, as you said, it’s been a weird season/year.”

Thomas-Dodd was not able to train consistently during the lockdown and says “as of now there is no plan to compete outside of the US for this year”.

For the time being she says she will continue to prepare and if the competitions come, her expectations “would be to represent myself and country to the best that I can, and whatever the result is I hope that on the day I can give my full effort and that will be enough”.