2022 Winter Olympics Live: Alpine Skiing And Hockey Begin In Beijing – The New York Times

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Sports are beginning to hum to life in Beijing, even though the opening ceremony remains more than a day away and athletes’ Olympic dreams, their moments in the spotlight and — perhaps most distressingly — their lives continued to be disrupted by brushes with the coronavirus.

Curling’s mixed doubles event quietly opened competition on Wednesday, the arrival of a moment that an increasingly confident China has awaited for seven years. Two more sports — women’s hockey and freestyle skiing — will start Thursday.

Still, no amount of precautions meant to wall off the Games could prevent the coronavirus from clouding the festivities. Almost as soon as the bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor was given the honor of carrying the U.S. flag alongside the curler John Shuster in the opening ceremony, she was immediately replaced by an alternate, the speedskater Brittany Bowe. Meyers Taylor, 37, is most likely competing in her last Olympics and learned last weekend that she had tested positive shortly after arriving in Beijing. She will not just miss out on carrying the flag in the ceremony on Friday; she cannot attend at all.

The Games, though, staffed by workers in full-body protective gear, walled off from their host city and governed by strict protocols, continued their relentless march forward.

Organizers are hoping that any drama on Thursday takes place on the snow and ice. In women’s hockey, the United States and Canada will begin what most expect will be their unstoppable march to the gold medal game. To get there, each must first play four preliminary games and then (as long as they keep winning) a quarterfinal and a semifinal.

At least their openers on Thursday will be something of a test: Both teams take on bronze medal contenders. Canada will face Switzerland at 12:10 p.m. (11:10 p.m. Wednesday Eastern), and the United States meets Finland at 9:10 p.m. (8:10 a.m. Eastern).

“Facing off against Finland here on Thursday is going to be a great competition for us and definitely set the pace for the rest of the tournament,” said Maddie Rooney, a goalie who helped steer the Americans to the gold medal four years ago, when the Finns captured the bronze.

But Joel Johnson, the U.S. coach, routinely insists that history will not necessarily dictate the outcome of these Games. On Wednesday, he was again trying to keep everyone focused on the present.

“It’s a new Olympics,” he said. “So everybody’s starting new, so I’m not sure that it matters a whole lot to us what happened four years ago. We’re proud of that effort, but this is a fresh start.”

Through tears, Kim Meylemans explained how she had thought her nightmare was over.

Meylemans, a skeleton racer from Belgium, had only recently returned to competition after a bout with the coronavirus in early January when she departed for Beijing on Sunday. A dozen negative tests in the weeks before her departure for the Winter Olympics had reassured her that her recovery had come just in time.

So Meylemans was stunned to learn that she had tested positive upon arrival, and frustrated when she was quickly moved into an isolation hotel. What happened next shook her.

In a tearful video posted on Instagram, Meylemans related how she thought she had been told by the Chinese authorities that she would be allowed to return to the Olympic Village to complete her isolation, only to be ferried to another facility and yet more isolation.

Breathing hard and appearing bewildered, Meylemans said she was unsure if she would be fit to compete. Even Belgian Olympic officials had not been told where she was being taken, she suggested. “I ask you all to give me some time to consider my next steps, because I’m not sure I can handle 14 more days and the Olympic competition while being in this isolation,” she said.

Relief came quickly. Hours after her video had spread widely on social media, Meylemans posted a new video in which she said she had received a knock on the door at 11:35 p.m. from officials who promptly escorted her to the Olympic Village.

Still, her case underscored the discomfort and confusion that many athletes, journalists and other visitors had expressed before the Games in China, which is enforcing strict measures as part of a so-called zero-Covid strategy. Those rules have frequently led to confusion, concern and — in the case of Meylemans — fear.

“This is the problem we said there would be from the beginning,” said Rob Koehler, the director general Global Athlete, an advocacy group. “No one knew what to expect.”

The International Olympic Committee, which had been negotiating with the Chinese authorities to reduce the trigger value for Games participants to return a negative test, said in a statement that it had learned of Meylemans’s case after she was released. It said she had been treated in accordance with the rules for close contacts in the so-called Olympics playbooks that govern Covid protocols for the Games. (Several New York Times journalists attending the Games have been subjected to the same restrictions, which require them to eat and travel alone while they work.) The decision to move Meylemans to a second isolation facility, the I.O.C. said, had been simply a matter of available space.

“Close contacts can train and compete, live in the Olympic Village, but need to be in a single room, transported alone and need to eat alone,” the I.O.C. said.

When Olympic officials were informed of Meylemans’s “difficult situation,” the I.O.C. said, they moved quickly to arrange a single room for her in the Olympic Village.

Once inside, a visibly relieved Meylemans was soon back online, posting a series of Instagram stories while reclining in bed. She thanked friends for their concern and Belgian Olympic officials for their help. “At least I’m back in the village,” she said. “I feel safe.”

The organizers of the Winter Olympics in Beijing turned to an old friend when picking a mascot: the panda.

This time around, organizers selected Bing Dwen Dwen, designed by Cao Xue, from more than 5,800 designs that had been submitted, according to the official site of the Olympics. Wrapped in a protective layer of ice mimicking an astronaut’s suit, Bing has been making its way around the bubble that is the Olympic Village.

The panda, once considered endangered, is native to China and is the country’s national animal. It has been used by the government as a diplomatic tool — like the pandas that have been donated to zoos in the United States — and has been minted on gold coins issued by the government. In 2008, when Beijing hosted the Summer Games, the organizers chose a panda as one of the five official Fuwa, or good-luck dolls, that served as mascots.

A committee made up of representatives of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts and the Jilin University of the Arts chose Bing, which means “ice” in Mandarin. And Dwen Dwen translates as “robust and lively,” and represents children, according to the website.

The first Olympic mascot, Shuss, was created for the 1968 Games held in Grenoble, France. At the time, organizers referred to Shuss as a “character” and not as a mascot. Its crude depiction of a man zipping downhill on skis is probably a result of the fact that it was created in a “hurry,” according to the Olympics website. The designer was given one night to design Shuss.

Since then, there have been 26 mascots for the Winter and Summer Games, including an anthropomorphic American bald eagle dressed as Uncle Sam for the 1984 Games in Los Angeles. One of the more famous ones was Cobi, a mountain dog from the Pyrenees that was drawn in a Cubist form, for the 1992 Games in Barcelona.

For a moment on Wednesday night, USA Network’s broadcast of Alpine skiing looked more like a cooking segment than a sporting event.

Steve Porino, an NBC Sports analyst and a former downhill skier, armed with Alpine skis like those used by such stars as Matthias Mayer, explained how the apparatus was as much a weapon as just a piece of sports equipment. (It was a slow sports day in Beijing: Alpine skiing, curling and hockey.)

To prove his point, USA showed video of Bode Miller, the Olympic gold medalist, crashing during a 2015 race. The edge of one of his skis tore through his suit, cutting into his hamstring and a tendon.

That was when Porino strapped on safety goggles, took aim at a papaya on a table in front of him and whacked the edge of a ski through the fruit.

Next came a watermelon: a clean slice and a splash of seeds and liquid. Finally, he made his way through a pineapple, yelling, “Aha!” as he knocked half of it off the table.

At the end of the segment, Ted Ligety, a two-time gold medalist, joined Porino as he alluded to how athletes often celebrate with champagne. Ligety twice took aim at the cork of a champagne bottle, succeeding in sabering it open on the second try.

As took a sip, he murmured about “sweet victory.”

The Beijing Olympics will open on Friday without several athletes and at least one International Olympic Committee member who have tested positive for the coronavirus in the final days before the Games.

The athletes come from a variety of sports and at least a half-dozen countries, and include at least two American medal contenders.

Elana Meyers Taylor, a three-time Olympic medalist and one of the most decorated American bobsledders in history, said on Tuesday that she had tested positive for the coronavirus shortly after arriving in Beijing for the Winter Olympics. Meyers Taylor, 37, who revealed her positive test in a post on Instagram, must return two negative test results to be released and to compete.

She is at least the second U.S. bobsledder affected in recent days. Josh Williamson, a member of the men’s two-man and four-man sleds, tested positive last week, part of what has been reported to be a larger outbreak involving coaches and others close to the team. “This has not been an easy pill to swallow,” Williamson wrote of missing the chance to accompany his teammates to China.

The I.O.C. member who tested positive, Emma Terho of Finland, announced her result on Instagram and said she would continue her work remotely while in isolation. Terho serves as chair of the I.O.C.’s Athletes’ Commission.

Not all of those who have tested positive but who are still feeling well are certain to miss out on their Olympic moments, however. Meyers Taylor, for example, could benefit from a schedule that won’t see her events start until later in the Games.

Among the latest cases:

• Marita Kramer, an Austrian ski jumper who was expected to contend for a gold medal at the Beijing Games, will not compete because of a lingering coronavirus infection. “No words, no feelings, just emptiness,” Kramer wrote on Instagram. “Is the world really this unfair?” Kramer, 20, tested positive on Saturday and had hoped that the infection would ebb in time for her to compete this week. But the Austrian Ski Federation said Kramer had recorded another positive test after returning home and would not be able to clear China’s stringent protocols in time.

• The Russian skeleton racer Nikita Tregubov, who won a silver medal at the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea, announced on Instagram that he had tested positive and would not travel to Beijing. He and his teammate Vladislav Semenov will be replaced on the team, the president of the Russian bobsled federation told the state news agency Tass.

• An outbreak on Norway’s powerful cross-country ski teams grew to include Heidi Weng, a nine-time world medalist, and her teammate Anne Kjersti Kalva. Earlier, a coach on the men’s team tested positive, briefly sending that entire squad into isolation as close contacts.

• A series of pretournament positives left the Czech men’s hockey team struggling to find enough players to practice last weekend, their coach said, and the Swiss women’s team flew to Beijing without at least two players, Alina Müller and Sinja Leemann. The coaches of both teams said they remained hopeful that their players would be cleared in time to travel and to compete. The women’s tournament begins Thursday; the men don’t play until next Wednesday.

• Russia’s bobsled team arrived in Beijing with half of its four-man squad after Aleksei Pushkarev and Vasily Kondratenko recorded positive tests at a training camp in Sochi on the eve of their team’s departure. The head coach of the Russian team, Danil Chaban, said neither man would be replaced, in the hope that they would be cleared in time for the bobsled competition, which begins Feb. 13.

• Denmark’s men’s hockey team held its first pre-Olympic practice on Wednesday without the six players who tested positive for Covid-19 upon arriving in China, The Associated Press reported. The Danish Olympic federation announced that Matthias Asperup and Nick Olesen, both forwards, had tested positive and went into isolation. Four other players also missed practice after testing positive, but the team hoped to get the players out of isolation in the coming days.

The U.S. broadcast of the 2022 Winter Games kicks off on Wednesday night with hockey, curling and Alpine skiing. All times are Eastern.

MIXED DOUBLES CURLING Live coverage begins when the U.S. mixed doubles curling team, featuring Vicky Persinger and Chris Plys, faces Italy at 8:05 p.m. on USA Network. The team’s matchup against Australia earlier on Wednesday will be broadcast at 6 p.m. on USA Network. Plys will also compete in the men’s tournament.

WOMEN’S HOCKEY Canada opens the Olympic competition against Switzerland in an opening-round matchup live at 11:10 p.m. on USA Network and Peacock.

The Canadian women’s hockey team is the reigning world champion and has won four gold medals. The United States and Canada have met in five of six Olympic gold medal games, with the Americans winning gold in a penalty shootout victory in 2018.

ALPINE SKIING The men’s downhill training session, which is expected to feature the Americans Bryce Bennett, Ryan Cochran-Siegle and Travis Ganong, will air live at 10 p.m. on USA Network and Peacock.

Coverage of the opening ceremony will air live at 6:30 a.m. on NBC and Peacock and will be followed by an enhanced prime-time presentation at 8 p.m. on both services.

In the months before Beijing 2022, The New York Times sat down with three dozen Olympians in the scariest, most dangerous events in the Winter Games and asked them if they get scared by what they do. Guess what? They all do.

They were eager to talk about it, in fact. Fear about getting hurt, about trying new tricks, about bad weather, about the uncertainty it brings andabout what it’s like when you’re skiing nearly blind. “Fear,” the snowboarder André Höflich said, “is what keeps us alive in the end.”

The interactive project that resulted examines the intersection of danger and daring, victory and disaster, even life and death, through the words of Olympians like Shaun White, Eileen Gu, Jamie Anderson, Aleksander Aamodt Kilde, Mark McMorris and dozens of others.

It may change how you watch the Games forever.

Burner phones and loaner laptops. Quarantine training centers and a bubble the size of a small city. Departure tests and arrival tests and daily tests. So. Many. Tests.

Every Olympics presents hurdles, from distance to language to politics. But rarely have those entrusted with transporting the teams, coaches, athletes and gear faced an obstacle course like the one currently testing their organizational skills, resources and patience.

Call these the Logistics Games, because no Olympics in history have been this hard to put on, get to or be at.

The reasons, of course, are painfully clear. The coronavirus pandemic has made byzantine health measures par for the course at any sporting event, and at almost every national border. But such rules are even more intense in China, where the government that will host the Winter Olympics that open on Friday has taken a “zero Covid” stance on managing the virus.

Even before the pandemic, China was not exactly an easy place to navigate for international travelers. Add the fact that the competition is starting only six months after the close of the Summer Games in Tokyo, which were postponed by a year near the start of the coronavirus pandemic, and the entire sports world has a recipe for a splitting migraine.

Planning, then, has become an Olympic sport all its own. U.S. officials, for example, chose to ship containers full of athletic gear, office supplies and even food from last summer’s Summer Games in Tokyo straight to Beijing, rewriting an established playbook, because of the unusually swift turnaround. Administrators in every country have stayed up nights scouring databases of approved testing sites, and coaches have worked to calm athletes trying to hold their nerve.

The whole situation, said Luc Tardif, the president of the International Ice Hockey Federation, is “a nightmare.”