Laura Woods: On Cheltenham, life without sport and the impact of coronavirus outbreak

Cheltenham was like the last hurrah. Thousands upon thousands of trilby, tweed and fur-clad men and women marching in and out of enclosures, passing money for bets, drinking copious amounts of champagne and squeezing into beer tents shoulder to shoulder.

We’ll look back at this as a moment of madness given the current climate and, to be honest, we already do.

We broadcast our talkSPORT breakfast show from the Coral box each morning, coming on air at 6am in pitch darkness and watching, transfixed as the sun made its way up and over Cleeve Hill, spreading across the empty racecourse and illuminating our faces. A much-welcomed warmth on our otherwise confused bodies which, by day four, were weathered in a slightly different fashion.

Cheltenham is always raucous, but getting up at 4am and attempting to broadcast for four hours before the day even begins adds a hint of delirium to proceedings.

As the week continued, the questions got louder. We reported what we knew as event after event got scratched from the sporting calendar. Formula One, golf, rugby union.

We exchanged a few nervous glances when we heard the Euros might be scrapped. But, when the news broke that Mikel Arteta and Callum Hudson-Odoi had tested positive for COVID-19 and that all Premier League fixtures were under threat of being cancelled or postponed, the spotlight shone even brighter on the elephant in the room, Cheltenham.

Rupert Bell, talkSPORT's resident racing guru explained that unless the government made the decision to shut it down, then its doors would remain firmly open. And so they did.

It was an odd feeling, regurgitating the reality around us and then watching the punters flood in for the biggest event in racing, the Gold Cup.

The attendance over the four days was reported at 251,684, down on the 2019 numbers, but only by 5.5%.

Aside from the anti-bacteria stations with signs stating, “Don't pass it on!” (pictured, below), you really would not have known we were entering a pandemic.

‘Meanwhile in Cheltenham’ hashtags and clips were all over Twitter. Photos of the 70,000 strong crowd filling every inch around the course, delighting in the festivities. One video of a small, bald, middle-aged man techno dancing in the middle of a circle of enthusiastic spectators went viral. Another showed a topless man celebrating a win outside the Guinness tent to the tune of a fast Irish gig that the band duly played for him as he danced in circles clapping his hands under his legs.

Cheltenham was in a bubble.

Many had suggested if the event was scheduled just a week later it could not have gone ahead. But it stood as one of the last pieces of sport we will cover for, what now, feels like a very long time.

It is only since I have got home and settled back into reality that the enormity of the situation has hit. Because whether you think the shut down we are experiencing now is right or you think the media are dramatising the situation, the effect on the public is very real.

In sports media, for example, freelance colleagues of mine have had all work for the foreseeable future cancelled, a pattern repeated in all sorts of industries. Events, travel, hospitality and more. Weddings, hen dos, holidays, all cancelled.

The fact no professional fixtures will be played until April 3 at the earliest has thrown us all into some sort of purgatory.

Players that are self-isolating are being encouraged not to go outside even for a run. Exercise bikes have been wiped down and sent out to those that don’t have one to keep fit at home. They have had revised nutritional guides to keep their calorie intake down.

• Coronavirus: Full list of cancelled, postponed and behind-closed-doors sports
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