<title>Abstract</title><sec><title>Background</title>The COVID-19 pandemic has negatively impacted sporting activities across the world. However, practical training strategies for athletes to reduce the risk of infection during the pandemic has not been definitively studied.

</sec><sec><title>Objective</title>The purpose of this report was to provide an overview of our challenges encountered during the reboot of high-performance sporting activities of the Japanese national handball team during the 3rd wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Tokyo, Japan.

</sec><sec><title>Methods</title>Twenty-nine Japanese national women’s handball players and 24 staff participated in the study. To initiate the reboot of their first training camp after COVID-19 stay-home social policy, we conducted: web-based health-monitoring, SARS-CoV-2 screening with polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test, real-time automated quantitative monitoring of social distancing on-court using video-based artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm, physical intensity evaluation with wearable heart rate (HR) and acceleration sensors, and self-reported online questionnaire.

</sec><sec><title>Results</title>The training camp was conducted successfully with no COVID-19 infections. The web-based health monitoring and the frequent PCR testing with short turnaround times contributed remarkably in early detection of athletes’ health problems and risk screening. During handball, the AI based on-court social-distancing monitoring revealed key time-dependent spatial metrics to define player-to-player proximity. This information facilitated positive team members’ on and off-game distancing behavior. Athletes regularly achieved around 80% of maximum HR during training, indicating anticipated improvements in achieving their physical intensities. Self-reported questionnaires related to the COVID management in the training camp revealed a sense of security among the athletes allowing them to focus singularly on their training.

</sec><sec><title>Conclusion</title>The current challenge provided us considerable know-how to create and manage a safe environment for high-performing athletes in the COVID-19 pandemic via the Japan Sports-Cyber Physical System (JS-CPS) of SRIP (Japan Sports Agency, Tokyo, Japan). This report is envisioned to provide informed decisions to coaches, trainers, policymakers from the sports federations in creating targeted, infection-free, sporting and training environments.

</sec>