Tokyo Olympics delay puts Kookaburras' Andrew Charter's wedding on hold

Andrew Charter was meant to be getting married after the Tokyo Olympic Games this year. But with the Olympics getting pushed back to 2021, his wedding looks set to be moved too.

But as far as work goes, the Canberra native is OK. The fact his hockey commitments have been put on hold means he has more time to devote to his job as an engineer with BHP.

They normally give him enough time off for his commitments with the Australian hockey program.

But the COVID-19 pandemic has forced the international Hockey Pro League to be put on hold until at least May 17, while the Hockey One national league has been cancelled for 2020.

Chafter felt it was also unlikely Australia would play again this year.

But more importantly, it looks like his wedding won't be going ahead either. He was set to walk down the aisle with fiancee Isabelle following the Tokyo Olympics.

The rescheduling of the Games to a year later will potentially end the careers of some athletes, but the 33-year-old felt that wouldn't be an issue and he was likely to push on towards 2021.

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He joked being forced to work from home would be a good test to see how the marriage will go - when it does eventually happen.

"There was no intention to retire post the Olympics this year, but it's one of those things a vast majority of Olympians say that and then they have one and then maybe that's the thing they want to finish on," Charter said.

"The deferment of the Olympics will probably push my wedding back. So it does have a lot of impacts on life, but it wasn't a decision that was a surprise.

"If we look back two months ago no one really believed the Olympics were going to go ahead in July. It would've been careless and naive. So the right decision I believe for public health and global health was taken in the end.

"But it does have big ramifications on a lot of athlete's lives. We have guys that won't graduate now because they'll have to put study on leave til the start of next year.

"So there is ramifications, but in terms of our program we'll continue on, we'll have a break for a couple of months now and then get back into it and effectively restart how we were eight months ago.

"We're looking for October [to get married], but we're going to have to go to Brazil to see her family.

"That trip to Brazil's going to be pushed back to post Olympics now so that's probably going to push everything along another six months. Lucky we hadn't put down a deposit. It'll be 2022 probably."

Charter knows he's in a lucky position with his work and was feeling for all the Australians who were losing their jobs due to the lockdown.

Some of his Kookaburras teammates have lost theirs as well.

They've been give a month off training, but will resume at the end of the month - likely on their own. But as a group? Well, who knows.

The Kookaburras were second on the Pro League ladder when it was postponed, with just goal difference separating them from top-placed Belgium, but they've played two extra games.

"We don't have a return date. Obviously it's dependent on how COVID progresses over the next couple of months," Charter said.

"We're on a leave of at least four weeks of just rest, no requirements in terms of conditioning or anything like that and then the program will touch base with us towards the back end of April to put in some conditioning work so we don't slip too far over this indefinite period.

"It will be a lot of personally driven stuff. We'll have a program and then we'll just have to find a way to execute that individually.

"Obviously we can't gather as a big group and do it as we normally would, which poses its own challenges.

"I wouldn't expect any [international] fixtures at this point in time. We haven't had anything communicated to us, but if we don't go back to full training until August I wouldn't imagine there's going to be much competition at that time of the year given European seasons.

"We'll take games if we can get them, but there's so much in flux at the moment globally that who really knows."