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A 37-member bobsleigh Canada skeleton contingent of athletes, coaches and employees will board a Hainan Airways airplane in Toronto and fly on to Beijing on Oct. 5.
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The Canadian travelling social gathering, which incorporates six bobsled pilots and crew, in addition to six skeleton sliders, is attending what’s referred to as the worldwide coaching interval on the 16-turn Nationwide Sliding Centre constructed for the 2022 Olympics in northern Beijing’s Yanqing District. Every skeleton athlete and bobsled crew with a quota spot for the Video games has been provided 46 journeys down the icy chute; their solely pre-Olympics alternative to be taught the observe.
That’s the brief model of the story. Chris Le Bihan, Calgary-based excessive efficiency director for BCS, has spent a number of late nights and early mornings just lately experiencing the for much longer version.
“Folks ask me how that’s going. I say I’m attempting to ship 40 folks and half one million {dollars} price of apparatus to Beijing and that’s a loopy endeavour proper now on this surroundings,” he mentioned Wednesday. “Usually I’d be most burdened about it. I’m an engineer. If issues aren’t deliberate effectively upfront, it bothers me lots. I’ve form of come to the conclusion that these things goes to get carried out, we’ve bought every kind of individuals engaged on it for us, and I’m simply going to imagine it’s going to occur.”
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Sleds have been packed in crates and are already being flown to Beijing. However once more, that’s the brief model of the story.
“All the pieces to do with going there was very tough, from flights to delivery issues,” mentioned Le Bihan. “All the pieces is completely different and I believe it’s extra concerning the pandemic than something, probably not about China. Usually you place your sleds on a airplane in Vancouver they usually land in Beijing and go by truck to the venue. The entire surroundings round delivery is so tough proper now, and costly, to the intense. That ramped up final yr, when it was double or triple the (regular) worth.”
He mentioned the logistics have been a always shifting goal, however the Beijing Olympics organizing committee has helped him navigate laws and restrictions created within the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, together with a requirement that every one worldwide flights to Beijing have to be direct.
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“The organizing committee has been glorious. Very fast to speak, fixing points for us. They helped safe the flight, we’re on a quasi constitution out of Toronto, as a result of there aren’t any direct industrial flights in or out of Beijing, on the earth.”
The Worldwide Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation organized a multi-team constitution from Frankfurt to Beijing and again. That didn’t work for BCS, as they are going to return to Canada earlier than a gruelling mid-November to mid-January stint on the World Cup tour.
When the BCS contingent arrives in Beijing, they are going to go immediately into a contest bubble that limits their actions to resort and venue as a precaution in opposition to the unfold of COVID-19. All 37 members of the travelling social gathering have been double-vaccinated.
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“In case you’re not double-vaxxed, it’s important to quarantine 21 days while you land. That was a non-starter. We weren’t taking anyone who must quarantine.”
There may be after all no assure everybody will stay wholesome by way of your complete three weeks of coaching, and that’s a fear for brakeman Kristen Bujnowski.
“My greatest concern is testing constructive in China, which additionally ends in a three-week quarantine. That’s nightmare gasoline as a result of I’ve skilled actually onerous to be within the form I’m in now and to be trapped in a Chinese language room the place they management what I eat and I’ve little or no room to do something, I believe would actually, actually harm my season.”
Le Bihan mentioned the Canadian staff has to remain “tremendous diligent” and likewise depend on the competitors bubble to cut back the danger.
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“There might be a ton of testing. I haven’t seen their protocols but however I’m guessing it’s an on daily basis factor.”
BCS is sending bobsled pilots Justin Kripps, Chris Spring, Taylor Austin, Christine De Bruin, Melissa Lotholz and Cynthia Appiah, in addition to crew members Bujnowski, Catherine Medeiros, Sara Villani, Niamh Haughey, Daybreak Richardson Wilson, Erica Voss, Cam Stones, Ryan Sommer, Ben Coakwell, Cyrus Grey, Shaq Murray-Lawrence, Sam Giguere, Anthony Couturier-Lagacé, Daniel Sunderland and Mike Evelyn. The skeleton sliders are Jane Channell, Elisabeth Maier, Mirela Rahneva, Blake Enzie, Kevin Boyer and Kyle Murray.
“That is the primary time we’ve been on the observe and we need to familiarize all people,” mentioned Le Bihan.
The coaching interval ends Oct. 27, official BCS staff choice for the World Cup tour might be finalized Oct. 31, and the Olympic qualification interval ends Jan. 15, at which level Canada will know what number of sleds and sliders will compete on the Video games in February.
