Olympic Games-Team Canada’s general manager is “concerned” about the predictions that the Beijing Games could move forward

By Steve Keating

(Reuters) – A few months before the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics, the Director General of the Canadian Olympic Committee (COC) has said he is increasingly concerned about whether the Games can go ahead as planned.

“We’re concerned,” COC CEO David Shoemaker told CBC in an interview on New Year’s Eve. “We are confident that these games can be safely programmed.

“But we’re taking it day in and day out and waking up every morning to make sure we still feel that way.”

The National Hockey League (NHL) said last month that it would not send players to the men’s ice hockey tournament, citing a “deep rupture” in the pandemic’s calendar.

As of Saturday, the NHL had delayed 90 games for reasons related to COVID-19.

Other winter sports have also been suspended from events that serve as Olympic qualifiers, including alpine skiing, bobsleigh and curling.

Shoemaker said the COC believes that if it threatens the safety of athletes, it will not hesitate to remove the plug in Beijing as it did in March 2020, when it decided not to send a team to the Tokyo Summer Olympics if it continues as planned.

The Tokyo Games were postponed a year later.

“We haven’t had a conversation with the IOC (International Olympic Committee) yet about the delay, but we’re often having talks with the participating winter sports nations, and it might happen,” Shoemaker said.

The COC’s biggest concern today is to get athletes into the Beijing bubble without giving a positive on COVID-19 and facing a three- to five-week quarantine in China.

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

“The real challenge for us over the next 30 days is how to ensure that Canadian participants can reach Beijing without contracting the virus and thus be able to give a negative to enter that scenario.”