UFC: Yan ‘Fury’ Xiaonan celebrates new ranking ‘playing with my dog’ in quarantine on Beijing return
- ‘The only sport I can do is playing with my dog,’ says Yan as she locks herself away in self-quarantine for 14 days at Beijing apartment
- ‘Next step is top 10, then top five,’ says rising Chinese strawweight star after win over Karolina Kowalkiewicz at UFC Auckland
Chinese fighter Yan Xiaonan has had precious little time to celebrate the biggest win of her UFC career this past Sunday, having flown out of New Zealand the next day and then having immediately locked herself away in self-quarantine for a 14-day stretch on her return to Beijing.
But the rising strawweight star is finding her moments.
“I am celebrating by eating and sleeping – and playing with my dog,” says Yan, speaking to the Post from inside her Beijing apartment. “The only sport I can do is playing with my dog. My parents are cooking lots of food for me and we’ve celebrated that way but these are times when everyone is making sacrifices.”
With China – and the world – in the grip of the coronavirus and its spread, Beijing has required all travellers to spend two weeks in self-quarantine on return to the country.
It had been touch-and-go that Yan would even be allowed into New Zealand for UFC Fight Night: Felder vs Hooker, following that country’s restrictions on incoming travellers following the outbreak of what’s now known as Covid-19, which has been responsible for 2,858 deaths globally.