Omicron: unvaccinated Olympic champ travels to Beijing, as organisers say Games will go ahead as planned despite outbreak
- Swiss Olympic snowboard champion Patrizia Kummer has cited personal reasons for not getting jabbed
- Omicron cases are on the rise for the first time in mainland China, and authorities have locked down several cities
Swiss Olympic snowboard champion Patrizia Kummer will travel to China this week to start a mandatory three-week quarantine period for athletes who aim to compete at the Beijing Winter Games and are not vaccinated against the coronavirus.
Kummer, 34, has cited personal reasons for not being vaccinated and was quoted by the SDA news agency on Tuesday as saying: “I respect the rules of the authorities and the IOC.”
The snowboarder, who claimed gold in the parallel giant slalom in 2014 in Sochi, has met the national qualifying standard to compete at next month’s Games, but is not yet guaranteed a place on the Swiss team.
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Door-to-door testing carried out in China’s Henan province as Omicron spreads from Tianjin
Her comments came as officials in China said the Olympics would go ahead as planned despite the Omicron coronavirus variant spreading in the country for the first time.
“Whatever difficulties and challenges we may encounter, our determination to host successful Games as planned remains firm and unwavering,” Zhao Weidong, the organising committee spokesman, said on Tuesday.
The locally acquired Omicron cases detected in Beijing’s neighbour city Tianjin at the weekend should not change any of the already strict measures in place for the February 4-20 Games, organisers said.
“As long as there is no big outbreak in the competition zone, we have not planned any adaptations for the countermeasures,” Huang Chun, deputy director of the office for pandemic prevention, said.