Olympic COVID restrictions are gone, however some athletes nonetheless self-quarantining : NPR

For most individuals, if not everybody, the pandemic days of masking are behind us.

In sure corners of the Winter Olympics in Italy, although, issues nonetheless look rather a lot like they did in COVID occasions.

Some athletes are taking excessive measures to remain wholesome.

When members of the U.S. ladies’s cross-country ski staff walked right into a information convention in a packed room firstly of the Olympics, every of them wore a masks. Jessie Diggins, the staff’s prime athlete, stated the identical guidelines apply if she’s inside along with her husband, who’s staying not with Diggins on the Olympics, however with household.

“He needs to guard my well being, too. And he is aware of how essential that is,” America’s most embellished cross-country skier stated. “And it is like, we have been ready 10 years to have the remainder of our lives collectively on a regular basis, and never worrying about illness. We will wait two extra weeks. It is OK.”

Locked down, however that is OK

On the final Olympic Video games, in China, a optimistic coronavirus check might put athletes in an isolation resort.

Issues aren’t that severe this time round. However athletes in cross-country snowboarding are among the many most inclined to respiratory viruses, and plenty of are being additional cautious to remain wholesome throughout a very powerful competitions of their lives.

Not solely are many skiers and coaches carrying masks indoors, however America’s cross-country staff, and a few from Scandinavia, have distributed with the Olympic Village altogether and are renting out their very own lodges, the place they will keep away from busy cafeterias and management who comes out and in.

“We’re fairly locked down making an attempt to not get sick and making an attempt to not waste power,” stated Ben Ogden, one other star on the U.S. staff.

“However that is OK, as a result of, like, we now have six, seven of our greatest pals, like, which might be contained in the bubble.”

Not each staff, although, can afford a setup just like the Individuals. Cross-country skiers from nations with smaller budgets are nonetheless staying inside an Olympic Village within the mountains close to their competitors venue.

And groups competing in different sports activities within the Olympic hub metropolis of Milan are taking drastically completely different approaches altogether. 

Ain’t nothin’ however a heartache

Members of the Finnish ladies’s hockey staff, as an illustration, had been belting out Backstreet Boys collectively at a karaoke social gathering at a restaurant in Milan, simply earlier than the Olympics began.

Just a few days later, the Worldwide Olympic Committee introduced their recreation in opposition to Canada needed to be postponed as a consequence of a number of instances of norovirus on Staff Finland’s ladies’s hockey squad.

“It most likely was a pleasant second, simply between teammates,” stated Anni Arko, a sports activities reporter for the Finnish newspaper Iltalehti. “Nevertheless it was such a giant danger. Like, I simply could not imagine my eyes that they really did that.”

Iltalehti wrote a scathing column concerning the norovirus outbreak, contrasting it with the acute measures taken by Finland’s cross-country skiers. 

On the final Olympics, Arko says, the staff’s star, Iivo Niskanen, “was thanking his spouse rather a lot, as a result of he was not seeing his family and friends. But additionally his spouse was not seeing principally anyone, so the household would not get any infections and Iivo could be wholesome.”

Niskanen has thus far been spared from sickness. He was wholesome for Sunday’s skiathlon race and positioned seventeenth.