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Olympian Alysha Newman COVID-19 Is 'Bringing Entire World Together'

Olympic pole-vaulter Alysha Newman says there's a silver lining to the coronavirus pandemic -- yeah, it sucks that the Games are postponed, but it's uniting the world like never before.

The 25-year-old Canadian -- who competed at the '16 Games -- had been hardcore training for Tokyo 2020 until COVID-19 stopped the sports world in its tracks.

But Newman says she's trying to focus on the positive -- and spelled it out to TMZ Sports.

"I'm going to get a whole other year of training and competition under my belt. Another year of growth as a person," Newman says.

"For me, it's been extremely humbling. For me, there is no wealth, no race, no religion, no 'who you know' that can get you on the other side of it. It's literally an entire world coming together and doing the right thing so we can go back to living reality."

"I've never seen that since I have been living. I'm 25 years old, I have never seen an entire world come together and really, really do what we can ... because it's us. Literally the world against this coronavirus and we have to remember that."

"We need to remember that the only way to get to the other side, to go back to reality, is following the rules, that is staying quarantined, and social-distancing and doing the right things, because we don't want to keep doing this for 3 years."

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