The sports coach facing the challenge of COVID-19: critical analysis for professional sustainability/El entrenador deportivo ante el reto de la COVID-19: análisis crítico por la sostenibilidad profesional

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has become an unprecedented, unpredictable and ominous situation. Its impact on the population became negative and on sportsmen and women, the circumstances of their actions came together. The objective of this research was to propose to the sports coach options to face the challenge of the COVID-19. The empirical methods used were the interview and the documentary review; the first one was applied to 13 coaches in charge of high performance athletes from different sports disciplines and the second one, with a review to 17 articles and books obtained from the Redalyc Scientific Information System. To this information, a critical analysis was made in two components of the COVID-19 as a challenge for the sports coach and the COVID-19 as a challenge for sportsmen and women and its psychological impact. This allowed to understand that the pandemic could be a problem, but, at the same time, it could be an opportunity, with which the proposal of options to face the challenge of the COVID-19 could be based. The conclusion is that the crisis should also serve to learn and be better prepared for similar situations in the future, where sustainability rests on the capacities that sports professionals develop, always in the interest of optimizing sports training.