“After a positive PCR test, I was taken to an isolation hotel. I sympathize with the skaters and staff who are preparing for their Olympic competitions. I will support them from a distance and I am convinced that they will experience the Olympic Games to the fullest,” said the Dutchman.
De Wit has no idea how exactly he contracted the virus. “I now constantly ask myself that question,” he says by telephone from his isolation hotel in Beijing. “I like to look at myself. If something happens to you, it’s basically your own fault. There must be reasons. Maybe I could have washed my hands more often, I have no idea.”
Amsterdam – Beijing
De Wit, who has been working for the Japanese federation since 2015, flew from Amsterdam to Beijing last Wednesday. The coach was on the same plane as the Dutch athletes and supervisors.
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In order to minimize the risk of corona, sports umbrella organization NOC*NSF had arranged that the approximately ninety members of TeamNL were kept as separate as possible from other travelers and attendees at Schiphol. The skaters, short track speed skaters and other athletes gathered in a specially reserved lounge after checking in at the airport.
The White in the back
De Wit sat in the back of the largely empty device, just like athletes from Hungary and Belgium and Dutch journalists. All of them were not part of the ‘bubble’ created. The members of TeamNL had the front part of the aircraft at their disposal, so that they could also be the first to disembark.
In Beijing, the organization of the Winter Games works with a so-called ‘super bubble’. Everyone must be tested for the coronavirus on arrival and every day thereafter. The participants in the Games are kept separate from the Chinese population.
De Wit seems to have contracted the virus in the Olympic village or on the skating rink (or the road there). In the Olympic village, participants of the Games are still arriving. The last group of Dutch athletes arrived in Beijing on Thursday morning.
TeamNL is still avoiding the dance
No one in TeamNL has yet been tested positive for the corona virus. Whether this also applies to the newest group remains to be seen on Thursday and the days after. Chef de mission Carl Verheijen and technical director Maurits Hendriks of NOC*NSF will give a press conference later in the day about the state of affairs at TeamNL in the run-up to the Games, which start on Friday.