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Hayley Wickenheiser
Photo: Tijana Martin / The Canadian Press / AP
Hayley Wickenheiser is one of the most famous ice hockey players in history.
The Canadian made global headlines even after her retirement in 2017 with a tweet in March last year.
The novel coronavirus had put countries around the world on high alert.
International sport has also been largely at a standstill for a long time, but the International Olympic Committee (IOC) continued with all its might to the planned hosting of the Olympic Games in Tokyo in summer 2020.
Wickenheiser has been a member of the IOC Athletes' Committee since 2014.
In those days, the budding medic had been confronted with the consequences of the pandemic at close range for weeks.
And she clearly criticized the rigorous course of her own organization.
The IOC was acting "irresponsibly and callously," she wrote.
Wickenheiser called for humanity from the IOC instead of stubbornly sticking to the summer games.
The crisis is bigger than Olympia.
This tweet, after all the first public criticism from the otherwise closed ranks of the IOC, made headlines worldwide and triggered a wave of protests.
A week later, the games were postponed.
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