Bobsledders on track for Beijing training odyssey
Getting 37 people and expensive equipment to China during COVID-19 is no easy feat
A 37-member Bobsleigh Canada Skeleton contingent of athletes, coaches and staff will board a Hainan Airlines plane in Toronto and fly directly to Beijing Oct. 5.
The Canadian travelling party, which includes six bobsled pilots and crew, as well as six skeleton sliders, is attending what's known as the international training period at the 16-turn National Sliding Centre built for the 2022 Olympics in northern Beijing's Yanqing District.
Each skeleton athlete and bobsled crew with a quota spot for the Games has been offered 46 trips down the icy chute; their only pre-olympics opportunity to learn the track.
That's the short version of the story. Chris Le Bihan, Calgarybased high performance director for BCS, has spent several late nights and early mornings recently experiencing the much longer edition.
“People ask me how that's going. I say I'm trying to send 40 people and half a million dollars worth of equipment to Beijing and that's a crazy endeavour right now in this environment,” he said. “Normally I would be maximum stressed about it. I'm an engineer. If things aren't planned well in advance, it bothers me a lot. I've sort of come to the conclusion that this stuff is going to get done, we've got all kinds of people working on it for us, and I'm just going to believe it's going to happen.”
Sleds have been packed in crates and are already being flown to Beijing. But again, that's the short version of the story.
“Everything to do with going there has been very difficult, from flights to shipping things,” said Le Bihan. “Everything is different and I think it's more about the pandemic than anything, not really about China. Normally you put your sleds on a plane in Vancouver and they land in Beijing and go by truck to the venue. The whole environment around shipping is so difficult right now, and expensive, to the extreme. That ramped up last year, when it was double or triple the (normal) price.”
He said the logistics have been a constantly moving target, but the Beijing Olympics organizing committee has helped him navigate regulations and restrictions created in the wake of the COVID -19 pandemic, including a demand that all international flights to Beijing must be direct.
“The organizing committee has been excellent. Very quick to communicate, solving issues for us. They helped secure the flight, we're on a quasi charter out of Toronto, because there are no direct commercial flights in or out of Beijing, in the world.”
The International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation arranged a multi-team charter from Frankfurt to Beijing and back. That didn't work for BCS, as they will return to Canada before a gruelling mid-november to mid-january stint on the World Cup tour.
When the BCS contingent arrives in Beijing, they will go directly into a competition bubble that limits their movements to hotel and venue as a precaution against the spread of COVID -19. All 37 members of the travelling party have been double-vaccinated. “If you're not double-vaxxed, you have to quarantine 21 days when you land ... We weren't taking anybody who would have to quarantine.”
There is of course no guarantee everyone will remain healthy through the entire three weeks of training, and that's a worry for brakeman Kristen Bujnowski.
“My biggest fear is testing positive in China, which also results in a three-week quarantine. That's nightmare fuel because I've trained really hard to be in the shape I'm in now and to be trapped in a Chinese room where they control what I eat and I have very little room to do anything, I think would really, really hurt my season.”
Le Bihan said the Canadian team has to stay “super diligent” and also rely on the competition bubble to reduce the risk. dbarnes@postmedia.com