Preparing for months, validating your ticket to Beijing, but not being able to defend your Olympic title. Le Norwegian Simen Krüger had a difficult experience. Sunday February 6, the one who had been crowned in skiathlon in Pyeongchang in 2018 was not present to contest the gold medal to Alexander Bolshunov, because of a positive test for Covid-19 just before flying to the China.
The founder is not the only one to have given up competing because of the coronavirus. The three-time Nordic combined Olympic champion Eric Frenzel has learned that he could not defend his chances on the normal hill when he had already put his suitcases on Chinese territory. The German and his compatriot Terence Weber still hope to be able to participate in the other events in their discipline, but a race against the clock is underway.
The two athletes will have to meet the requirements of the strict health protocol of the Beijing Olympics and thus provide two consecutive negative PCR tests separated by at least 24 hours to get out of isolation. French short-tracker Sébastien Lepape met these requirements after testing positive on January 27, upon his arrival. But this is not the case for another Habs, skater Adam Siao Him Fa, waiting for a second negative PCR to be able to train.
This in-between situation is very badly experienced by some athletes, who have also pointed the finger at the living conditions of their forced isolation. This is the case of Belgian Kim Meylemans, who burst into tears in a video posted on her Instagram page on Thursday. When she learned of the end of her isolation, the skeleton player was brought to a new place on the fringe: “I have to stay here for seven days with two PCRs a day, without any contact with anyone else. I have the right to train but alone. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to go to the Olympic Village. It’s very hard for me“.
The International Olympic Committee has since apologized but the Belgian is still not sure of being able to compete or even of being in full possession of her means on Saturday February 12, the day when the identity of the Olympic skeleton champion will be unveiled. Fuzziness and uncertainty dominate, even more so in the management of contact cases. Johannes Boe, contact case of Jarl Magnus Riiber, was able to offer the gold medal to the Norwegian mixed relay on Saturday, when his compatriot Ingrid Landmark Tandrevold, in the same situation, was not aligned with the event.
It is up to the delegations to choose to have an athlete compete in this case. The regulations do not impose quarantine on contact cases. On the other hand, they must comply with two PCR tests a day, eat and travel alone.
45 tests came back positive on Saturday, 25 of which involved athletes and officials from the 2022 Beijing Olympics. Figures down from the 55 detected on Wednesday, but not enough to ward off the sword of Damocles over the head of all the participants in these Olympics.