HELL’S BELLS
Skater Farrell stops a lap early after thinking he heard claxon
from
FARRELL TREACY dodged a Covid bullet only to shoot himself in the foot at the Winter Olympics.
A forgettable first full day of competition for Team GB brought disappointment across five disciplines.
None was more painful than shorttrack speed-skater Treacy, 26, stopping a lap early thinking he had crossed the finish line.
“I made a really big error and to do that on this stage is heartbreaking,” he said. “I thought I heard the bell [the lap before] and I’ve gone to the line early.
“It’s never happened before so for it to happen at the Olympics is not fantastic.”
Britain had hopes pinned on the older of the two Treacy brothers after Niall, 21, crashed out in an earlier heat – and Kathryn Thomson did the same in the women’s competition.
Moguls star Will Feneley suffered the same fate as former world champion snowboarder Katie Ormerod in failing to qualify on the slopes outside Beijing.
Rupert Staudinger slipped to 24th midway through the men’s luge while curlers Bruce Mouat and Jen Dodds lost ground in the mixed doubles – after an 8-3 victory over the Czech Republic was followed by an 9-5 loss to Italy.
Reprieved
Treacy could have lifted spirits and was in the mood to do so having been released from his coronavirus hell.
“I got Covid in mid-january,” he added. “And obviously with the protocols in China it was looking very unlikely that I was even going to be here.”
Treacy spent 10 days off ice before being reprieved when organisers unexpectedly lowered the Ct threshold for having a negative test. “They were telling me ‘it’s not going to happen’ and the next day things changed,” he said. “The anxiety was crazy.”
With two of the nine laps to go he looked set to cash in as he sat on the shoulder of the leader. But then came his error. “I don’t know if it’s a massive lapse of judgement or something that I heard,” he admitted. “But it’s on me.”
Treacy gets another chance in the 1500m on Wednesday by which time Mouat and Dodds will hope to have a medal on the rink. But they can’t afford slips in their remaining games with China, Norway and the US. “It’s almost must-win now,” Mouat said.