Last weekend’s glut of sports is what sports fans live for as we were stuck in front of the television, practically from morning until night, watching the smorgasbord of world-class sports that was served up.

The treat began from Wednesday when the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division One track and field outdoor championships got underway with over 40 Jamaicans participating, to the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Championships, the start of Copa America, the National Basketball Association (NBA) play-offs, and the dramatic ending of the French Open.

All that was nearly good enough to soothe the wounds from the poor performances of the West Indies, losing the first Test against South Africa in three days, thanks to some anaemic batting, and the uninspired performances from both the Reggae Boyz and Reggae Girlz giving up four goals in international friendlies on either side of the globe.

Inspite of that, there was some good news on the local scene as the start of the Jamaica Premier League is just over a week away, while news broke earlier this week that another sport, basketball, has been given the go-ahead to restart locally.

For now, local sports will be played behind closed doors – that is without fans – but hopefully soon, as we see with overseas sports, limited numbers of fans will be allowed in the sports venues.

After last year’s lockdown on account of the novel coronavirus pandemic, which caused live sports to stop for months on end, no one is complaining about the overdose in live sports that we had last week.

In fact, we hope more local sports will get the green light to start as we return to as close to normal as we can get, given that it is believed we will be living with the coronavirus at least for a few more years.

The easing of sanctions and the relaxing of curfews will also help us return to normality.

And, because of the curfews, next week’s Jamaica Athletics Administrative Association (JAAA) national junior and senior championships and the start of the Premier League will be held in the daytime, in the heat of the sun, and not in the late evening and night as we had become used to.

The first Premier League game on Sunday will start at 8:30 am and the second at 11:00 am, hours before the start of the 2:00 pm curfew.

It could be difficult for the players who are not expected to be in the best physical condition to play under, what is expected to be, hot and humid conditions.

The early start for the championships, however, might not prove to be much of a deterrent for the track and field athletes who are used to competing early in the day at major events.

It might be a blessing in disguise for the fans as they will not be forced to sit in the sun and suffer through what could be ‘bad football,’ at least for the first few games.