Parsley Sage
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Curling Canada has cancelled the Mixed Doubles Olympic trials.
Given what I saw from Shaun White at Copper Mountain, they should have focused on Red Gerard instead.Mikaela Shiffrin has tested positive for c0vid and will miss her races in Austria this week : https://www.instagram.com/p/CX-79BcD4P7/
ETA that Shiffrin is one of the 5 Olympians NBC has been promoting ahead of their coverage (along with Nathan, Chloe Kim, Shaun White and short track speed skater Maame Biney): https://twitter.com/NBCOlympics/header_photo
The three-time gold medalist continued to underwhelm in the 2021-22 season and is down to one remaining qualifier, Jan. 6-8 at Mammoth Mountain. It doesn’t mean he won’t make the three- or four-man U.S. team. But more and more, it looks like the 35-year-old icon from Carlsbad will need a discretionary pick from U.S. Ski & Snowboard to get to Beijing.
They picked him for his story, not his results though.Given what I saw from Shaun White at Copper Mountain, they should have focused on Red Gerard instead.
On Tuesday, soon after the U.S. CDC shortened its recommended isolation period for asymptomatic people with COVID-19 from 10 days to five, Beijing Olympic organizers stood by a policy that could bar athletes from the upcoming Winter Games long after they’ve cleared infections.
A day later, an International Olympic Committee spokesperson said that exceptions to the policy could be considered, but indicated that final decisions would lie with “the Chinese authorities.”
Protocols for the 2022 Winter Olympics, outlined in published “playbooks” and supplementary documents, require all participants to submit two negative PCR tests shortly before entering China. They do not include exceptions for athletes who’ve recently recovered from COVID-19, despite widespread evidence that PCR tests can continue to detect insignificant traces of the virus weeks after the contagious phase of a person’s illness.
In the FAQ document, in response to a question about a scenario where one of two pre-departure tests comes back positive and the other negative, organizers wrote, unequivocally: “Any positive PCR test of COVID-19 within 96 hours of the departure of your flight to China will prevent you from traveling to China.”
The policy would put any athlete who contracts the virus between now and Feb. 4, the start of the Games, at risk of essentially being disqualified — even if, by late January, they feel uninhibited by COVID and aren’t capable of spreading it.
[Vanderbilt infectious disease specialist Bill] Schaffner estimated that the likelihood of “persistently positive tests” was 10%, and said that “sometimes those tests can be persistently positive for several weeks.” Jonathan Finnoff, the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s chief medical officer, recently acknowledged to the Wall Street Journal that athletes who test positive in the coming weeks might not be able to clear the negative test hurdle.
Just days after that acknowledgement, on Monday, skier Mikaela Shiffrin, one of Team USA’s biggest stars, tested positive for COVID. The International Ski Federation’s protocols could allow Shiffrin to return to World Cup races after 10 days and a negative test, or after 14 days and “an individual assessment” of her case if she continues to test positive.
It’s unclear if there will be Olympic rules providing similar leeway. Published protocols suggest there aren’t.
The apparent rigidity has left athletes taking extreme precautions to avoid the virus. Some, though, feel a degree of helplessness. They know, especially with the highly contagious Omicron variant pushing U.S. case counts to record highs, that some Olympic dreams will inevitably be spoiled.
“We're all vaccinated, we're all safe, we wear our masks, sanitize, every hour,” U.S. luger Tucker West said last week, shortly before Christmas. “But you can only do so much. You never know when you're gonna catch it or if you're gonna catch it. And the stark reality of it is, if you get it two, three weeks out from the Games, you will not compete in the Games.
Simple. The insanity, misinformation, conflicting, and stupidity have allowed a free-for-all. And, you can find an "expert" somewhere who is an adamant proponent of a policy that serves your needs.One wonders, then, why at Russian Nationals, few in the large audience, and no skaters and coaches were wearing masks. It would seem to be testing fate.
And then the top Russian skaters and their coaches will be at Euros.
The Powers That Be will make sure she will go to Beijing. They don't want to US lose medals to CV.Will be interesting to follow Shiffrin’s case. Will she be PCR negative in 4 weeks? Maybe. Or she’ll not be going to Beijing.
The women developed symptoms on the flight, did a test which came back positive and after consulting with the crew self-isolated in a bathroom to protect everyone else on board. She did the right thing.I read about a woman who took a rapid test just after her plane took off. And....she self-isolated herself in the bathroom FOR 5 HOURS! Genius......except for the other people on the plane who now was down a bathroom, as well as harm to people she may have infected before she thought "I have the sniffles.....better take a test"
Oh, it will happen. Politically it’s too important to China for it not to be held.I'm honestly doubtful today about the Olympics happening.
It is very important but with their Covid rules ... I mean you can't have only three competitors competing for an Olympic medal in ice dance for example.Oh, it will happen. Politically it’s too important to China for it not to be held.
Well solo ice dance isn’t in the Olympics so no…It is very important but with their ********* rules ... I mean you can't have only three competitors competing for an Olympic medal in ice dance for example.
It is really a wait and see at this point. It's going to be a lot of athletes I'm thinking.Well solo ice dance isn’t in the Olympics so no…
Will selected athletes test positive for YKW on arrival in China? Most likely. Will that put a stop to the Games going ahead. I doubt it.
This is the first time I've heard China casting any doubt on the Olympics going ahead as scheduled
https://www.sports.ru/biathlon/1105...len-lokdaun-iz-za-omikron-shtamma-korona.html
Huang Chun, spokesman for the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee, said the spread of the omicron in a worst-case scenario could affect the Games' schedule.
就“奥密克戎疫情开始在中国境内和北京周边传播,是否会影响冬奥按时举办”一问,北京冬奥组委疫情防控办公室副主任黄春回应记者称,目前总体情况可控,冬奥组委医疗团队都在关注病毒的传播性和危害性,还在持续进行评估。
黄春说:“除非引起闭环内大的、规模性的聚集性疫情(才可能调整赛程),目前还没有调整防疫政策的想法,但是我们保留相关的空间,会根据疫情变化的形势调整。根据目前的态势,从冬奥组委的层面没有采取封城措施的必要,目前来看还是按照原有的防疫措施来进行。”
“除非闭环内发生了聚集型规模疫情,当然这是我们不愿意看到的最坏的情况,如果这样的情况发生肯定会对赛事和赛程有影响。但是相信经过我们所有参赛者和国内工作人员的共同努力,我们尽力避免这种情况发生。”黄春表示。