Dozens of COVID tests, borrowed skates and spare racing suit: U.S. speedskater’s epic journey to 2nd-last place

U.S. speedskater Casey Dawson finished the men’s 1,500-metre with the second worst time at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, but his journey getting to the starting line is one for the record books.

Dawson’s race for the podium was slightly derailed nearly three weeks ago after testing positive for COVID-19 back on home soil following the U.S. trials in Milwaukee. The 21-year-old returned to Salt Lake City to continue training while awaiting a negative PCR test.

“Friends, family, teammates, competitors… I am saddened to announce that I will not be racing my individual races at the 2022 Olympic Winter Games,” Dawson wrote in an Instagram post. “After testing positive for COVID three weeks ago, I just finally started testing negative this past week.”

Dawson first tested negative for COVID-19 on Feb. 1, just a couple of days before the Games began and the rest of this fellow U.S. Olympians were already on the ground in Beijing. Last Tuesday, the skater tested negative once again.

“I thought everything was good to go to leave and get to Beijing before my 5000m, and according to everyone I’ve been in contact with, that was the general consensus. I needed two consecutive negative tests to be approved to leave, and I was able to produce those,” he said. “I received news that they now require four negative tests to even consider sending me over. Also the testing site I used was on the approved list, and that was also changed as well, so I had to switch where I was getting tested.

However, the U.S. Olympic Committee said the athlete had to test negative four times in order to travel. The meant Dawson would miss his first competition, the 5,000m.

“It was up and down. Once I got a negative test I was riding high, but when I got a positive test I would be on the ground crying and I just didn’t think I would get here in the first place,” Dawson told reporters in Beijing on Tuesday. “I’ve taken 45 PCR tests over the past couple of weeks just to test negative.”

Once cleared to fly, Dawson began a nearly 24-hour journey to the Olympics from the U.S. via Paris before landing in China, 12 hours before the start of his next event. He made it, however, his skates did not.

Dawson’s bags got misplaced somewhere along the way. Fortunately he was able to borrow a pair of skates from fellow Olympian Haralds Silovs of Latvia. Dawson also was lucky enough to have a spare race suit in his carry-on bag.

Dawson ended up skating in the 1,500-metre, and raced his way to second last place.

-with files from the Associated Press