Gregg Valentino shares his thoughts on the Arnold Classic 2020 expo being postponed and how it affects the event as a whole.
It was announced in March just days before the Arnold Sports Festival that the expo portion of the event would be postponed due to the ongoing spread of the coronavirus. This came after the residents of Columbus, Ohio garnered over 10,000 signatures in a petition to stop the event. This led to mass confusion and frustration amongst fans – as many were unclear what athletic events would still be ongoing and which spectators could attend. In our latest GI Exclusive interview, Gregg Valentino shares his thoughts on whether or not postponing the Arnold Classic 2020 expo was a bad call.
As the coronavirus continues to spread, countries are becoming more and more strict about massive public gatherings. Many tech events have been cancelled and certain sporting events in countries such as Italy have been barred from allowing spectators. While it’s not completely unexpected that the Arnold Classic 2020 Expo was postponed (it predicted over 250,000 visitors for the event), what was surprising is how last minute the news came through. The expo was postponed only 2 days before the event.
We are now settled into the Arnold Classic as the competitions have begun their rounds – but how has the overall reaction affected the event as a whole? Has it diminished the competitions? Gregg Valentino thinks that ultimately it was the right decision.
While he believes that there is some slight over-exaggeration in the media creating unnecessary panic – he does think the coronavirus needs to be taken seriously. It’s a shame for the vendors and for the event as a whole that it needed to happen, but Gregg thinks you can’t stop a force of nature like this. It’s simply an unfortunate reality for this year’s Arnold Classic.
Gregg goes onto discuss the coronavirus as a whole and how it’s been spreading. He discusses the politics in China and how exactly he thinks the virus initially spread (he has a lot of opinions based off of things he’s heard about rats).
Gregg Valentino ends it off by recounting times in the past he’s gone to bodybuilding events when someone has the flu. These kinds of expos are massive petri dishes ripe for spreading a virus, corona, flu, or otherwise. With news that certain athletes such as Nathan De Asha and Lionel Beyeke are now unable to compete due to travel limitations from the virus – it seems overall the Arnold Classic 2020 will be forced to live in the shadow of the coronavirus.
It’s a shame, as the Olympia 2019 also had caveats in the form of missing athletes such as Big Ramy, Shawn Rhoden, and Phil Heath. This will be the second big competition in a row with an asterisks next to it in the history books.
Watch Gregg Valentino’s full take on the Arnold Classic 2020 expo postponement in our latest GI Exclusive interview segment above!
