2022 Winter Olympics status updates, news articles, etc.

Sylvia

TBD
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Qualified Men’s, Women's & Mixed Doubles Curling Teams:
 

Frau Muller

From Puerto Rico…With Love! Not LatinX!
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US-based Delta Airlines turned its Shanghai-bound flight back to Seattle, upon hearing new rules for arrival at Shanghai Airport that, says Delta, cannot be implemented. Delta rather cancel flights than implement overly-complicated new Chinese protocols, in other words.

 

rfisher

Let the skating begin
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Sylvia

TBD
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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.
 

Sylvia

TBD
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The unscientific COVID-19 rule that could keep healthy athletes out of the Beijing Olympics ‘for no good reason’
By Henry Bushnell of Yahoo! Sports (Dec. 28, 2021):
Excerpts:
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.
 
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euterpe

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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.
 

Tahuu

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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.
 

AxelAnnie

Like a small boat on the ocean...
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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.
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.

Want less quarantine...no problem

Want more rapid testing...got it.
Want less rapid testing?---we can cover you there too.
Want free rapid testing kits? Sure......oh, we forgot to order them.

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"

Experts say "follow the science" Which science? Whose science? The science that changes daily?

What a mess!

It will be utterly fascinating to see what happens with the rest of the competitions.
 

moebius

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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 Powers That Be will make sure she will go to Beijing. They don't want to US lose medals to CV.
 

allezfred

In A Fake Snowball Fight
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65,407
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"
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.

 

Judy

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5,527
Oh, it will happen. Politically it’s too important to China for it not to be held.
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.

 

allezfred

In A Fake Snowball Fight
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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.
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.
 

Judy

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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.
It is really a wait and see at this point. It's going to be a lot of athletes I'm thinking.
 

Frau Muller

From Puerto Rico…With Love! Not LatinX!
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We may end up with significantly reduced fields of skaters in every event. Hope not but maybe.
 

On My Own

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Will the winter games be open to the public? Feel like I've seen that it won't be (on social media) a couple times, but IDK if there's been anything official yet. (and that it'll be sponsors selected by the Chinese government who will be able to attend)
 
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Gris

不做奴才做公民
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Quoting from another thread...

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.

ETA: This article has been deleted :eek:

The article linked in @taz'smum 's post is from Russian media. The link posted above is to the original Chinese report, which says: (translation mine, emphasis as in the original)

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。

"When asked about whether the Omicron transmission in China and areas surrounding Beijing will affect the schedule of the Winter Olympics, Huang Chun, Deputy Director of the C*vid Response Office of Beijing Olympic Winter Games Organizing Committee replies that the current overall situation is controllable and both the Organizing Committee and the Medical Team are paying attention to the transmissibility and harmfulness of the v*rus and are continuously evaluating.
Huang Chun says:'(The schedule will only be changed) when there are wide-scaled clusters in the closed-loop. Right now we are not thinking about changing the C*vid control policies. However, we leave room for that and will adjust according to the p*ndemic situation. Based on the current state, from the perspective of the Organizing Committee, lockdown is not necessary and we plan to proceed in line with the existing control measures.'
'Unless there are wide-scaled clusters in the closed-loop. Of course, this is the worse case scenario that we do not want to see and if it happens, it will surely affect the competitions and schedule. However, we believe that with the joint efforts of all participants and domestic staff, we will try our best to avoid this scenario.'"

BTW, when searching for the original article above, I found out that the outbreak at U.S. Nationals made it to the major news outlet of China: http://www.cankaoxiaoxi.com/world/20220109/2465475.shtml (They mentioned the names of Alysa Liu, Brandon Frazier and Alexa Knierim)
 
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Dave of the North

Digging up dead relatives since 1992
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6,304
Rachel Homan and John Morris have been chosen to represent Canada in Mixed Doubles (MD) Curling at the Olympics. (the trials were cancelled due to YKW). There's some controversy over this as this team was only 5th in the MD ranking system that Canada uses. Curling Canada also took two other factors into consideration - previous Worlds /Olympics success, success of the team over the last couple of years in MD events, and weighted the three areas in some (undisclosed) fashion.

A few days before this, Ontario had announced that Rachel Homan's 4 woman team would be the Ontario rep at the Scott Tournament of Hearts (because the Ontario playdowns had been cancelled), but then also said that in the event that Rachel was chosen for the Olympics in MD, her team would lose their ranking points, and Hollie Duncan's team would be chosen.

After the MD team was announced, Ontario duly said that Hollie Duncan would be the Ontario rep at the TOH.

Then Curling Canada announced that they had decided they would add three wild cards to the field for the TOH, the third of which would be Rachel Homan's team (minus Rachel, since she will be in Beijing).

Hope this is clear for everybody. :p
 

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