Winter Olympics 2022 Day four wrap: Aussie Katie Parker tests positive for Covid but cleared to compete
Katie Parker has learned whether she will be able to make her Olympic debut in Beijing after testing positive for Covid on arrival.
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Australian alpine skier Katie Parker has been given a last-minute reprieve to make her Winter Olympic debut after returning two negative tests overnight.
Parker will now be allowed to take her place in the women’s slalom on Wednesday after she was originally told she had been ruled out because her first sample came back positive. .
“We are thrilled for her after a very difficult ride. It’s a big ask for her today to step up to this level of competition off the back of this whole experience but she has shown incredible mental toughness and determination,” the Australian team chef de mission Geoff Lipshut said.
“She stepped onto that plane knowing there was a real possibility she may be positive at the other end, but here we are this morning waking up to news that further resting has come in negative.
Parker is just the latest Winter Olympian to have been caught up in China’s brutal testing regime, which has turned the Games into a complete shambles.
Already, several athletes from around the world have had their Olympic dreams ruined by China’s paranoid testing system, with Parker one of the few lucky ones to earn a reprieve.
She recently tested positive to Covid in the United States and is now clear of the infection but still almost missed out on competing.
She passed a series of tests before being cleared to fly to Beijing but because the Chinese are using ultra-sensitive testing equipment that detects fragments from old infections, she tested positive on arrival.
Sent to an isolation hotel in Zhangjiakou, her only hope of competing was to pass two successive tests overnight which she did in the nick of time.
“While we had alerted the Medical Expert Panel of a potential submission, the process now allows for her to take her place at the start line,” Lipshut said.
“We wish her all the very best today. She will become an Olympian and we are delighted that this dream can come alive.”
Covid paranoia erupts as ‘American traitor’ wins gold
The Canadian women’s ice hockey team wore masks in their Olympic competition amid astonishing fears that their Russian opponents were infected with Covid-19.
Monday’s match was initially delayed as the daily testing results of the Russian team had been held up and the Canadians would only take to the ice if Russia wore the N95 medical grade masks. Russia agreed, but only if the Canadians also did the same.
The Russian women complied in order for the game to begin, but then dispensed with the masks once the results – all negative - came through in the third period.
However the Canadians, paranoid about catching Covid in these Olympics where positive cases are thrown into isolation rooms with poor food, continued to wear theirs for the entire game. Canada won the match 6-1.
The international ice hockey federation IIHF said: “With a view to ensure full understanding of the teams about the health and safety measures in place, the start of preliminary round game between Canada and ROC was delayed by an hour. Out of caution and concern for the health and safety of the players, the IIHF agreed with the participating teams to play the game with masks on.”
The World Health Organisation recommends against wearing any face coverings while exercising.
N95 masks have to be worn by all participants at these Olympics, and organisers have “mask police” patrolling venues to ensure they are tightly fitted at all times make it difficult to breathe undertaking normal activities, let alone demanding physical exercise.
Everyone is tested every day with a throat swab, and some close contacts are tested every 12 hours. There are more than 400 Olympic participants in isolation with Covid-19, and hundreds more of close contacts are restricted in their movements.
But the International Olympic Committee has encouraged China’s pursuit of zero Covid and supported the strict Covid rules, even as some athletes have been ruled out of competitions.
This climate of fear, not of the virus, but of the Chinese repercussions, has led to such extreme lengths of avoiding having a positive test.
Canadian team member Natalie Spooner said after the match: “Russia’s results from this morning weren’t back in yet. “I know in the past few days they’ve had a few positives and we just wanted to make sure their results came back and we were safe to play.
“They said their results came back and they were all negative and said they were going to take their masks off. We figured we’ve already done it for two periods why not just keep being extra-safe for one more period and make it through.”
The Canadian women’s actions have been a strong talking point in Canada where the “Freedom Convoys’’, agitating against vaccination mandates and ongoing Covid measures, has gathered momentum.
Aussie flagbearer’s huge accomplishment
Australian Olympic flag bearer Brendan Kerry is through to the medal round in the men’s figure skating at the Beijing Olympics.
The 27-year-old is not in contention for a medal but just making it through to the long program is a massive accomplishment of the quality of competitors in the event.
Kerry had been struggling all week in practice but he safely landed everything he had to, including a quadruple toe-loop to qualify 17th with 84.79 points.
“Once I got past the first two jumps, I felt calm and I was just taking in moments of the programme and enjoying it,” he said.
“This morning’s practice was terrible but I was speaking with my coaches and they were like, ‘No, that’s really good for a morning for you. You’ve rotated a few times in the air, so we’re happy’.
“The six-minute warm-up was great. I felt really comfortable but my legs felt a little bit flat when I was starting the programme. I just relied on (that) I’ve done this programme so many times and so many sections that even if I’m tired, I can do it.”
The longer free skate program that will decide the medals will be held on Thursday, with American Nathan Chen in the box seat for gold after topping the field with an imposing score of 113.79 points less than 24 hours after his teammates Vincent Zhou was forced out for testing positive to Covid-19.
“It definitely brings people to edge, and I’m really, really upset for him,” Chen sad.
“He definitely deserves to be here. He worked so incredibly hard.”
‘American traitor’ caught in Olympics propaganda
China’s imported covergirl Eileen Gu won the Beijing Olympic big air ski competition in amid wild scenes loaded with political overtones.
Gu herself is American, but adopted Chinese nationality to help promote the sport in the country of her mother’s birth four years ago. It instantly earned her fanfare in China, and a huge boost to her profile, bank account and the numbers of magazine covers to grace along with Victoria’s Secret, Louis Vuitton, Tiffany and Vogue deals.
While Gu performed for the cameras after her final gold medal winning trick, artfully positioned directly behind her was the International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach.
Alongside him was the other Chinese woman of the moment, Peng Shuai, also in the VIP enclosure inside the Big Air venue at Shuogang, a repurposed former steel mill.
Gu landed a huge and spectacular 1620 trick, the first of her career in competition, to beat Tess Ledeaux of France, and signaled she would be a force in the women's ski slopestyle and halfpipe as well.
Gu is known as the “Snow Princess” and that, as well as her Chinese name, Gu Ailing, were instantly the top trending topics with hundreds of millions of views on Weibo, the Chinese social media platform.
In her birthplace the United States, a country still searching for its first gold medal at these Games, the Stanford University freshman who grew up in San Francisco under the care of her grandparents, was the subject of much discussion too, not all of it favourable.
Gu, just 18, has been labelled an American traitor and opportunist for allowing herself to be used as propaganda by the Chinese government.
Trotting out Peng at such an internationally captured moment may have been the IOC and the Chinese state overplaying their hands to try and reassure a skeptical international audience; but it also reminds Gu of the consequences of speaking her American mind about any issues that may be embarrassing to the host nation.
Peng has still only given one interview to a French magazine – on the strict condition the questions were vetted in advance, without any editorialising, and with Chinese minders in the room listening in. There is still huge suspicion that Peng is not able clarify without any censure, exactly what she meant when she accused her one time lover, a senior Chinese official of sexual assault. In the L’Equipe interview says she took down her social media post and that others have misrepresented what she meant.
In the coming days as Gu is promoted throughout China, she will face uncomfortable questions from western media about China’s human rights, Tibet, Hong Kong Taiwan and Xianjing.
As an American she may to be tempted to debate such issues, but as a Chinese woman, and with the experience of Peng so close to hand, Gu will be reminded such topics are off limits.
IS THAT CHEATING? SKATER’S RACE SABOTAGE CAUGHT ON FILM
The optics are not great for Chinese speed skater Kexin Fan who appears to have deliberately made a rival fall by pushing a track marker into their race line.
Footage from Beijing appears to show Fan slide a black marker towards Alyson Charles who subsequently falls out of contention as does the Chinese skater.
The footage is from the Women’s 500m Short Track Speed Skating quarterfinals at Capital Indoor Stadium.
Bizarrely it was actually Charles’ Canadian teammate Florence Brunelle that copped a penalty for the race.
“That’s sport,” a tearful Brunelle told The Globe and Mail after the race. “Through making mistakes, I’ll learn. I’ll arrive more ready for other competitions having lived what I’m going through.”
‘DESTROYING SPORT’: FEMALE ATHLETES BOOTED OVER CLOTHING
Slovenia won the inaugural Olympic ski jumping mixed team competition at the Beijing Games on but the event was dominated by an unprecedented spate of disqualifications.
Five jumpers were disqualified for wearing loose-fitting suits – deemed to give athletes an advantage as they fly though the air.
The disqualified jumpers were women from the German, Japanese, Norwegian and Austrian teams.
Four-time world mixed team champions Germany were eliminated in the first round after Katharina Althaus was disqualified.
Althaus tearfully accused the international ski federation FIS of “destroying women’s ski jumping”.
“We were so happy to have a second event (for women) here at the Olympics,” said Althaus, quoted by the German sports agency SID.
“The FIS destroyed everything with this operation. I think they have destroyed women’s ski jumping. I don’t know what they’re trying to do.”
“I have been checked so many times in 11 years of ski jumping, and I have never been disqualified once, I know my suit was compliant,” added Althaus, who burst into tears on learning of her disqualification.
Germany’s men’s coach Stefan Horngacher said “the disappointment is of course huge but the rules have to be accepted”.
“It is just strange that they have been using the same suits yesterday and there was no problem,” continued Horngacher.
“It is annoying that this happens at the Winter Olympic Games. This should all be cleared before,” he said, adding that it was “not good for the sport”.
CONTROVERSY MARS OLYMPICS’ MOST INSPIRATIONAL MOMENT
He beat cancer, but did the Olympic snowboard slopestyle judges miss a trick in awarding the gold medal to Canada’s Max Parrot?
Parrot was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma months after the PyeongChang Olympics where he had won silver, and his comeback from dealing with that medical setback has been inspirational.
But during the Beijing slopestyle final on Monday – the event that requires mastery of rails and three big air tricks down a long course – Parrot’s final score was mired in controversy.
On the second of three runs, Parrot was given his highest score of 90.96, but the judges appear to have missed the Canadian’s failed grab in the air.
Commentators calling the event live and backed up with the benefit of slow motion replays, from Australia’s Channel 7 experts Mitch Tomlinson and Ryan Tiene to the BBC’s Ed Leigh all noticed the small error and expressed surprise that the high score did not reflect the execution of the trick.
Leigh said it was a glaring error, “highly controversial” and exposed a big judging discrepancy.
Tiene said during the live call: “He missed the grab there. He had to grab onto his leg.”
“You did see him go for the grab, miss it twice and realised, ‘hey, if I don’t grab my leg’, I might get really smashed.”
But when the score flashed up fellow commentator Tomlinson was stunned.
“Oh, did they not see that?”
“They didn’t see it – a 90.96, with a leg grab thrown in.
“That’s not good for snowboarding.”
The error cost China’s Su Yiming a gold medal. Yiming, who was a child actor, decided to concentrate on professional snowboarding once his hometown was awarded the Olympic Games, won the silver medal.
Parrot didn’t refer to the controversial grab in interviews afterwards.
He said of that run: “I’m incredibly proud of myself on the run I did today, it was the hardest one I’ve ever done in my entire career. “I was able to stay focused and to lay down every feature perfectly, which got me to 90 and got me the gold medal that I was missing in my career.”
He told the Toronto Sun of the impact of his cancer treatment exactly three years ago: “I had no more muscles, no more energy, no more cardio. I remember I was drawn by my treatments. “I almost wanted to quit sometimes because it was getting so hard just to get to the next morning.
“To be standing here three years later and winning gold, that is completely crazy.”
Parrot’s teammate Mark McMorris had the final attempt of the day and nailed a superb run that he believed would edge him near the gold medal.
Instead McMorris, who has also come back from devastating multiple fractures, a ruptured spleen and collapsed lung after colliding with a tree in a high speed snowboard accident several years ago finished with the bronze.
“Definitely was anticipating a bit higher of a score,” McMorris said. “But sometimes when you finish a run, you don’t really recall some of the like maybe little bobbles you had or whatnot.”
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Originally published as Winter Olympics 2022 Day four wrap: Aussie Katie Parker tests positive for Covid but cleared to compete
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