Photo: Tom Pennington/Getty/Team USA
Elana Meyers Taylor is still hoping to compete in the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics despite testing positive for COVID-19 two days after entering China.
On Thursday, Meyers Taylor told ABC News that she “was pretty shocked” to learn that she had tested positive for COVID-19. “We did everything we could to try and avoid it and still caught up to us anyway,” she explained.
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Meyers Taylor is currently being quarantined away from her entire team as well as her husband Nic Taylor (an alternate for the men’s bobsled team) and son Nico, who traveled to Beijing with her under exceptions for breastfeeding mothers. All three tested positive for COVID-19 after arriving in China, but are required to quarantine separately.
Tom Pennington/Getty/Team USA
With some help from Team USA, Meyers Taylor was given a breast pump to assist with the process of feeding Nico, who was born in 2020, while she remains quarantined away from the little boy, per ABC News.
“We FaceTime as much as we can and, you know, just trying to do everything we can to stay connected,” Meyers Taylor told the outlet, noting that she and her family are asymptomatic.
Meyers Taylor will need to test negative twice, 24 hours apart to be allowed to compete. The women’s monobob competition is not until Feb. 13, so there is a chance she’ll still be able to participate.
Martin Rose/Getty
Czech Republic ice hockey star and former Boston Bruins forwardDavid Krejcihas also tested positive for COVID-19, but after traveling to China. Though he was forced to miss his team’s first practice, head coach Filip Pesan remains hopeful that Krejci will be able to complete, according to the Associated Press.
“We’re going to re-test him tonight and re-test him tomorrow morning, and I strongly believe that he’s going to join the practice tomorrow,” Pesan said, per the outlet.
For Belgian skeleton athleteKim Meylemans, however, things were more complicated after she initially tested positive for COVID-19. After spending three days in isolation and repeatedly testing negative, the athlete believed she was being brought back to the Olympic Villiage on Wednesday until she realized she was being taken to another isolation facility for an additional isolation period.
Meylemans detailed the experience in a video on her Instagram page that night, saying through tears, “We are not even sure I will ever be allowed to return to the Village.
The veteran athlete was brought to the village later that night, however, andfelt “safe"once she settled in, Yahoo! Sports reported.
To learn more about all the Olympic and Paralympic hopefuls, visit TeamUSA.org. Watch the Winter Olympics, beginning Feb 3, and the Paralympics, beginning March 4, on NBC.
source: people.com
