Olympics-Team Canada CEO “worries” over whether Beijing Games will continue as planned by Reuters

Author Steve Keating

(Reuters) – Just over a month after the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, the CEO of the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) said he was “deeply concerned” that the Games would continue as planned.

“We are concerned,” COC CEO David Shoemaker told CBC in an interview for New Year. “We are confident that the Games will continue to improve.

“But we take it every day and wake up every morning to make sure that’s how we still feel.”

The National Hockey League (NHL) last month said it would not send players to an ice hockey men’s tournament saying the plague had “severely disrupted” its system.

As of Saturday, NHL suspended 90 games for COVID-19-related reasons.

Other winter sports have also had some disruptive effects on events that seem to qualify for the Olympics, including mountain slopes, bobsleigh and curling.

Shoemaker said if the COC believes that the safety of the athletes is compromised, it will not be long to pull the plug on Beijing as it did in March 2020 when it decided to send the team to the Tokyo Summer Olympics if they could go as planned.

Tokyo Games are delayed for one year.

“We do not have to talk to the IOC (International Olympic Committee) about the delays but we are talking frequently to the participating countries in the winter and it could happen,” Shoemaker said.

The biggest concern at the COC is the entry of athletes into Beijing immediately without testing that they have COVID-19 and are expected to be isolated for three to five weeks in China.

“Medical experts agree, and the consensus is that the safest place from Omicron in February will be the Olympic bubble in Beijing,” Shoemaker said.

“The biggest challenge for us in the next 30 days is how we ensure that Canadian participants can get to Beijing without the virus and thus be HIV-negative to get into it.”