The Chinese are not losing their rhythm. True to the announced timing, they officially opened this Thursday, January 27, eight days and a handful of hours before the opening ceremony, the three athletes' villages for the Beijing Games.
The gates were pushed open early in the morning at the entrance to the villages of Beijing, Yanging and Zhangjiakou. The first delegations are announced for the same afternoon. The Japanese women's ice hockey team is expected to take up residence in the Beijing village buildings before the start of the evening.
The villages are open, therefore. At the appointed time. Without an ounce of delay. The arrival schedule, on the other hand, still looks very vague and uncertain. For several days, travel postponements have followed one another without stopping among foreign delegations.
The cause is the COVID-19 pandemic. The new outbreak of coronavirus cases is wreaking serious havoc on the Olympic teams, a few days or hours before the first departures for China. Not all countries are affected, but many are seeing their workforce disrupted by the health crisis.
Six players from the Czech men's ice hockey team have tested positive for coronavirus, said national coach Filip Pešán. They are part of a group of 12 players from the Russian KHL (Kontinental Hockey League), the second professional league in the world after the North American NHL. According to the coach, none of the players who tested positive have any symptoms, but they have all been placed in isolation in a hotel located near the national team's training center in Prague.
The Czech Republic has put together a team of 24 people for the Olympic tournament, but has planned a plan B, with a group of 30 replacements likely to be integrated into the squad. A first contingent of players is due to fly to Beijing this Thursday, January 27. The rest of the team will return to China later, depending on negative COVID-19 test results.
Norway is also hard hit by the pandemic. Two of the female stars of her cross-country ski team, Heidi Weng and Anne Kjersti Kalvå, contracted the virus during a training camp at the Italian resort of Seiser Alm. They are currently in isolation in Norway.
According to the manager of the cross-country ski team, Espen Bjervig, their participation in the Olympic Games is now very uncertain. Heidi Weng and Anne Kjersti Kalvå will remain in isolation for 10 days, until February 3, the day before the opening ceremony. Cross-country skiing competitions are scheduled to begin on Saturday, February 5. The two cross-country skiers were supposed to fly to Beijing this Thursday, January 27.
Russia has already bracketed a few names among its so-called “Athletes of the Olympic Committee of Russia” delegation. An ice hockey player, Artem Anisimov, tested positive. He was left out of the group, isolated from the team and placed on the substitute list. His participation has not yet been ruled out, but it looks very compromised. According to Russian media, the player feels in good shape, but he has to train alone.
Tuesday January 25, the Russian Figure Skating Federation announced the forced resignation of three-time national champion, Mikhail Kolyada, who tested positive for COVID-19. He will not compete in the Beijing Games. His replacement has already been appointed. He prepares his pack.
Nikita Tregubov, silver medalist in skeleton at the PyeongChang 2018 Games, was also a victim of the virus. The Russian was kept away from the training camp for lugers, bobsledders and skeleton specialists in Sochi, on the track for the 2014 Winter Games, awaiting a possible departure for Beijing.
On the American side, the Olympic team turned out to be rather spared. But a bobsledder, Josh Williamson, tested positive for coronavirus last Sunday. He will not be able to travel with the rest of his group this Thursday, January 27. His plane ticket was put on hold pending upcoming tests.
« There are subsequent flights to Beijing throughout the Olympics, in anticipation of these kinds of problems, he explained on social networks. I only need several consecutive negative results to be on one of them"
Unlike the Norwegian cross-country skiers, Josh Williamson is not yet pressed for time. The Olympic two-man bobsleigh event will take place on February 14 and 15, 10 days after the opening ceremony.
