Daily Archives: December 25, 2021

Athletes and sports officials around the world have for months been viewing the approaching Winter Olympics in Beijing, set to take place in February amid a still-raging pandemic, with a mixture of apprehension and weariness. Now, a global surge of cases tied to the highly contagious Omicron variant has given them all the more reason to be on edge.

A single positive test before the opening ceremony on Feb. 4, after all, could derail an athletes entire career. An outbreak in China could still derail the entire Games.

With the new variant being out and about, its definitely a little scary, said Karen Chen, an American figure skater. I know its definitely been going around. All we can do is sanitize our hands, wear a mask and hope for the best.

China has already announced elaborate precautions to protect against the coronavirus reaching its own population or participants in the Winter Games, and to ensure those two groups have almost no contact with one another. On Thursday, as athletes around the world continued to plot out the safest personal routes to the Games, China detailed some of the strictest rules yet for its own citizens.

Spectators at the Winter Olympics which were already limited to residents of China will be allowed to clap, but not shout, in support of athletes. Waiters, cleaners and other support staff will not be allowed to leave Olympic venues to visit their families. And any Olympic participants leaving the vicinity for the rest of China will be required to spend at least one week in quarantine, followed by at least two weeks of isolation at home.

And still, Chinese officials acknowledged they were bracing for the inevitability that some infections will emerge at the Olympics, where everyone will face daily polymerase chain reaction (P.C.R.) tests.

A certain number of positive cases will become a high probability event, Han Zirong, the secretary general of Beijings Winter Games organizing committee, told reporters on Thursday.

China has barred overseas spectators from entering the country. It is allowing vaccinated foreign athletes, trainers, coaches, referees, journalists and a few others to enter without enduring the usual two or more weeks of quarantine followed by a week of home confinement.

The exemption, however, comes with a stringent requirement that foreigners not leave a closed loop of hotels and sports venues, linked by special buses and trains.

We must never go outside the closed loop, let alone reach the city level this is our bottom line, said Huang Chun, deputy director of the Olympic organizing committees Office of Epidemic Prevention and Control.

For those outside China, getting to the Olympics in the first place remained the most urgent goal.

Many are now taking proactive measures to keep the virus at bay before their scheduled departures to Beijing. The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, for instance, has begun strongly encouraging, but not requiring, that its athletes receive booster shots. The British Olympic Association said it was similarly recommending boosters for its athletes where feasible. Some teams are going further, specifically telling athletes to try to obtain the Moderna booster after the company announced the results of early studies that appeared to show it was slightly more effective against the Omicron variant. Other studies have suggested those findings are more hopeful than realistic since the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines remain largely unavailable in much of the world.

For many athletes and teams, though, the heartbreak of having years of hard work erased by a positive test on the eve of the Games seemed almost unimaginable. That fear has led to changes large and small.

Dec. 25, 2021, 5:01 p.m. ET

In the Netherlands, the national speedskating trials typically a boisterous, multiday affair held in front of tens of thousands of fans will take place next week behind closed doors amid nationwide lockdowns, with only teams and select members of the news media allowed to enter the rink.

In Austria, a group of American biathletes training at a high-altitude camp in Ramsau am Dachstein has been sending a single staff member out for sporadic visits to the grocery store with a big shopping list containing the athletes various requests, as part of an effort to limit potential exposure.

And Olympic hopefuls attending the U.S. figure skating championships next month in Nashville where masks will be required for fans, but vaccinations will not are already mapping out plans to avoid risky situations. Madison Hubbell, an American ice dancer, said major figure skating competitions were already infamous for spreading colds and flus. As in previous years, Hubbell will be staying in a rental apartment rather than the team hotel.

We have our own accommodations that are walking distance that dont require ground transportation, she said. The N95 mask does wonders, and distance does wonders, and we try to take that same policy that we take into the grocery store here and into the airport.

China has reported dozens of coronavirus cases daily this week. On Thursday, the local authorities locked down Xian, a city of 13 million people. At least 242 cases have occurred there in an outbreak this month. Beijing has not divulged how many involve the Omicron variant.

New treatments. The Food and Drug Administration authorized in short succession the firsttwo pill treatments for Covid-19 from Pfizerand Merck. The new drugs, which can be taken at home with a doctors prescription, will be available to some Covid patients who are at higher risk of becoming severely ill.

The country has been mostly successful in controlling the virus by quarantining hundreds of close contacts of infected people, and in some cases contacts of contacts. But similarly broad measures at the Olympics could make it hard to hold the Games.

Some precautions are already visible at a ski resort in the mountains near Zhangjiakou, about 100 miles northwest of Beijing, where nearly half of the Olympic events will be held. Thick, clear plastic sheeting from floor to ceiling separates bus drivers from their passengers.

At the resorts high-speed-rail station, visitors must provide proof of a negative P.C.R. test in the preceding 48 hours. Also required is proof on a smartphone app that the traveler has not visited any Chinese city in the previous two weeks that has had a recent infection.

For construction workers putting the finishing touches on the venues, the authorities already do nucleic acid tests once every three days, Jia Maoting, the general manager of the Olympic Sports Construction and Development Company, told reporters during a visit to the Olympic ski jump venue.

Han, the secretary general of the Olympic organizing committee, cautioned that further measures may be added in the weeks to come. Everything depends on the changes in the global and Chinese epidemic situation, he said, especially the infectiousness of the new mutant strain, Omicron.

For prospective international attendees, unease about the virus itself has been amplified by uncertainty about the official protocols should they test positive or be identified as a close contact of someone who has.

The National Hockey League this week announced that its players will not participate, a reversal of the leagues earlier position. And Natalie Geisenberger, an Olympic luge champion from Germany, drew attention this month after criticizing the restrictions she experienced during a three-week training trip in China and suggesting she was reconsidering whether she was even willing to travel there again for the Games.

Geisenberger, 33, told a German broadcaster that she was identified as a close contact of someone who had tested positive and was forced to quarantine for several days in her room, despite testing negative herself. She said the food provided for her during her isolation fell short of the standard required for an elite athlete in the midst of training and competition.

The conditions that we experienced there speak in favor of not necessarily going back there again, said Geisenberger, who has won four Olympic gold medals in her career.

Others, including Zach Donahue, Hubbells skating partner, seemed resigned to the fact that many things would be out of their control, and that going to China to chase an Olympic dream in the middle of a pandemic already meant they were willing to encounter some potentially uncomfortable situations.

The decision to continue on to the Games means we choose to accept anything that happens due to testing or anything like that, he said. We know going into it that its high risk. We know going into a grocery store theres risk. Its part of the journey.

Liu Yi and Li You contributed research.

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As Olympics Near, China Tightens Rules and Athletes Invent Their Own - The New York Times

As Simone Biles entered the Ariake Gymnastics Centre for the womens team final at the Tokyo Olympics, the eyes of the sporting world slowly fixated on her. She was, to many, the most dominant athlete in the world and the greatest gymnast in history, undefeated in the all-around, team and floor competitions since 2013. She had pushed the boundaries of the sport even further throughout the summer and after winning four gold medals and a bronze in Rio, it was the start of what could have been the final, crowning moment of her career.

Instead, what unfolded that evening was astonishing. On her first event in the team final, the vault, Biles completely lost track of herself in the air as she attempted her 2.5 twisting Yurchenko vault, one of her most trusted skills. After aborting the skill and somehow avoiding injury, Biles disappeared from the competition floor with her national team staff. When Biles eventually returned, she huddled with her teammates, and then she was done.

After the competition, Biles could have avoided speaking in depth or even walked straight past the journalists in the mixed zone. Instead, numerous reporters departed in awe of what they had heard after she openly explained her mental health struggles. Asked exactly why she decided not to compete, her response was clear: To focus on my wellbeing, she said. There is more to life than just gymnastics. Later that evening, during the official press conference, her teammates rallied around her and offered their unending support.

Biles had followed in the footsteps of Naomi Osaka, whom she referenced, by placing discussions about mental health in the centre of sports. As with Osaka, another prominent black woman, it immediately led to predictable backlash and scorn across social media. But Biles remained resolute and in the following days her issues became clearer. She had developed the twisties, which occurs when a gymnasts mind and body are out of sync, rendering them unable to complete certain skills safely. Biles had completely lost her air-awareness during her twisting skills so continuing to compete meant there was an extremely high chance of her falling and injuring herself, possibly seriously.

Each day brought news of Biles withdrawing from another event, but she would still travel to the arena for each final and cheer louder ithan anyone else for her compatriots and rivals from other countries alike. Behind the scenes, Biles was secretly doing everything in her power to return. She located a private gym outside of the Olympic Village and each day she would safely attempt her skills into its foam pits.

At no point in Tokyo did she regain her twisting ability, but Biles decided to remove all of the twists from her balance beam routine and attempt to compete on the very final day of competition. After days of hearing her mental strength questioned, Biles returned to competition and threw down an extremely clean routine to earn a bronze medal despite the diminished difficulty level.

Over the past few years, so much has happened to Biles that led to the events in Tokyo. She has competed at the highest level since 2013, an eternity in womens gymnastics. Even though she has avoided any lengthy injury layoffs, which are common in gymnastics, so many years of pounding her muscles and joints in training has left a painful mark on her body. After nearing what finally seemed an appropriate finish line for her career, she was distraught when the pandemic pushed the Olympics back by a year.

Meanwhile, Biles continued to compete and cement her greatness while coming to terms with being a very public survivor of sexual abuse by the former US team doctor Larry Nassar, who also abused many of her former teammates. She wrestled with the reality that she could only continue to chase her personal goals in her sport by representing USA Gymnastics, the organisation that had failed to protect her. That she was the last remaining survivor on the team only increased the pressure she felt to continue to compete and hold the governing body to account.

As Biles collected her medal on 3 August and digested her thoughts, she was not yet prepared to fully embrace the narrative that she had ended her week triumphantly. Speaking afterwards, she finished most comments by noting that despite her pride at bouncing back, it sucked she had to withdraw from so many events. Beyond the medals and golds, after all of her efforts to make it to Tokyo, it was crushing that she simply could not perform as she wished.

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But in the months since she returned home, with time and space, Biles has come to fully understand the impact of her decisions. She cherishes the bronze medal and the fortitude it took to gain it. She has said that she often felt in recent years she was competing for other people, and here she decided for herself. In a sport known for creating a toxic culture of overtraining and competing with injuries, she has shown a generation of new gymnasts the importance of prioritising safety and wellbeing. After spending so many years changing her sport within the confines of the competition floor, she did so again by stepping away from it.

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Jaw-dropping sport moments of 2021: Simone Biles at the Tokyo Olympics - The Guardian

The Chicago Blackhawks were going to have a lot of players that are participating in the Winter Olympic Games. It was going to be a lot of fun to see players from around the National Hockey League represent their countries in the games but it will not happen now.

The NHL and NHLPA have mutually agreed to not send players to the Olympics because of concerns with COVID-19. Cases are rising all over the world and hockey has been severely impacted. The league started to make slow adjustments but it eventually led to them shutting it down through the Christmas holiday.

This announcement is sad but it is for the best. Nobody wants to see an NHL player miss time with his club because he tested positive in China and cant come home. As fun as it would have been, the league needs to do what is in the best interest of its teams and players.

There are a fair amount of Blackhawks players that were going to be participating. Each country announced three players that were the first three named to the roster. Patrick Kane and Seth Jones were two of the three players that were named for Team USA.

Each of them would have really helped the team win games in the Olympics. Alex DeBrincat would have probably made it as well when the rest of the roster was announced as he is one of the best American players in the league right now. Unfortunately, his first-ever Olympics is going to have to wait. Team USA would have been really good so this hurts.

Guys like Marc-Andre Fleury and Dominik Kubalik would each have a chance as well. None of them are locks but they would have at least been considered. Now, the Blackhawks know that they will have their full roster safe in North America instead of taking risks in China.

There are other NHL superstars that are missing out as well. It is disappointing to see players like Connor McDavid, Alex Ovechkin, Sidney Crosby, Auston Matthews, Leon Draisaitl, and Nathan MacKinnon miss out as they all would have been a pleasure to watch.

Some of them will be able to get another chance at this in 2026. However, 37-year-old Patrick Kane might have a hard time cracking Team USA at that point in time. It is a bummer for a lot of players in the league in similar situations. This is less than ideal but as mentioned before, it is in the best interest of the league.

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Chicago Blackhawks players wont be seen at the Winter Olympics - Da Windy City

The Winter Olympicshave been marked by controversy and scandal since the first Games in 1924. From cheating by East German lugers to the sordid Tonya Harding figure skating fiasco, here are six events that made headlines:

American speedskater Charles Jewtraw

Corbis Historical via Getty Images

At the Games in Chamonix, France, Norwegians contended the 500-meter speedskating final had been mistimed in favor of American Charles Jewtraw, a heavy underdog who won the gold.

"[B]ack then, races were timed by handby cold, frozen handon stopwatches," author Jack Harris wrote inThe Winter Olympics. "And the 500 meters is such a short race that slow trigger fingers by race officials could dramatically alter the finish."

Jewtraw's win, by 1/5 of a second, stunned him. too. In a 1983 interview with Sports Illustrated, Jewtraw said he had never competed in the 500 prior to the gold-medal race and hadn't even trained for the Games.

"I wasn't even nervous the day of the race," he said. "Why would I be? I knew I couldn't win.But by finishing in 44 seconds, his time bested contenders from Norway and Sweden.

"The whole American team rushed out on the ice," he said. "They hugged me like I was a beautiful girl."

France's Jean-Claude Killy earned three gold medals in alpine skiing in Grenoble, France, but his victory in the slalom was nearly taken away. Competing in a thick fog, Austria's Karl Schranz, Killys top rival, claimed a mysterious figure in black emerged on the course during his second run. He skidded to a halt and asked for a re-run.

With three witnesses verifying his account, the request was granted and Schranz produced a gold medal-winning time. But hewas disqualified two hours later after a jury ruled he had missed two gates before seeing the strange figure in the second run. Killy kept his gold.

Schranzs supporters contended the mystery man had been a French policeman or soldier who had purposely interfered with the run to ensure Killys victory. The French hinted Schranz had made up the story.

"I was descending and I saw a dark shadow ahead of me," Schranz said at a news conference."I wanted to avoid it, and I stopped. It was apparently a ski policeman."

When asked if he missed the gate before the incident, Schranz said he was "hypnotized by the dark shadow I saw ahead. It is possible that for the moment I missed a gate to avoid it."

The women's luge competition at the Grenoble Games was all but a lock for East Germany. Defending champ and gold-medal favorite Ortrun Enderleinstood in first; teammates Anna-Maria Mller and Angela Knsel were second and fourth.

But when fellow competitors complained that they had witnessed the East Germans warming the blades of their metal runners, an illegal practice, they were disqualified.

A jury member acted immediately, International Luge Federation president Bert Isatitsch said, according toUPI. "He went to the starting line and put his hands on the runners. They were warm."

Isatitsch said East German officials used "foul language" when notified of the disqualification. One waved his arms around, shouting and screaming," he told UPI.

After the disqualifications, Italys Erica Lechner took the gold. West Germans received the silver and bronze.

Tonya Harding (left) did not earn a medal at the 1994 Games. Nancy Kerrigan (right) won a silver.

Vincent Amalvy/AFP via Getty Images

"Terror on Ice," "Ice Follies," "Thin Ice"newspaper and magazine headline writers had a field day in wake of figure skating's most notable scandal.Americans Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding stood at the center of events that inspired documentaries, aSeinfeldTV episode, song parodies and a feature-length movie.

A month before the 1994 Winter Games, a man wielding a metal baton attacked gold- medal favorite Kerriganduring a practice at the U.S. Nationals, paving the way for Harding to win the event and to qualify for the Olympics.

Soon afterward, however, it was discovered that Hardings ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, had planned the attack. With Kerrigan recoveredand Harding allowed to compete despite her not-yet-confirmed connection to the crimethe womens figure skating competition became the hottest event at the Olympics.TV ratings soared.

The event was punctuated by Harding dramatically stopping during her long program and officials granting her a re-skate because of a broken skate lace.In the end, Kerrigan took silver behind Ukraines Oksana Baiul; Harding finished eighth.

READ MORE: Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan: A Complete Timeline

Ice dancing got a dose of spy games in Nagano, Japan, when a Canadian judge secretly taped a conversation with another judge about picking winners before the competition.

After her complaints to officials had been brushed aside, Jean Senft recorded Ukrainian judge Yuri Balkov discussing skater placements as proof of her accusations. During the call, Balkov said he would vote for Canadians if Senft voted for a Ukrainian pair.

"The athletes are not competing on a fair playing field," Senft later told CBC News. "This isn't sport. Somebody had to get proof."

The Canadians failed to earn a medal, though many believed their performance was at least worthy of a bronze. Balkov was suspended for one year, and Senft was handed a six-month suspension. "For heaven's sakes, if I were part of it, why would I bring it forward?" she later told Time magazine.

The scandal led Dick Pound, a top International Olympic Committee official, to urge for ice dancing's removal from the Olympics unless judging reforms were made. (Ice dancing was not removed from Olympic competition.)

"If [cheating] happens at the world championships in some small town, nobody notices," Pound said, according toThe New York Times. "But in the Olympics, hundreds of millions of people are watching."

Figure skating judges were again at the center of a scandal when another vote-trading plot among judges, this time in pairs ice dancing, was uncovered.

The Russian team of Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze edged Canadians Jamie Sale and David Pelletier for the gold medal. But Marie-Reine Le Gougne, a French judge, came forward, saying she was pressured by the French ice sports federation to put the Russians first.

I knew very well who would vote in favor of the Russians and who would vote in favor of the Canadians," she told Reuters. "I was almost certain that I was the one who would award the Olympic title. What I feared would happen really did.

After investigations, officials awarded Sale and Pelletier gold medals. (The Russians were allowed to keep theirs.)"We do hope we get the bronze, too, so we can get the entire collection," Pelletier quipped at a news conference after the ruling.

Le Gougne was suspended from judging for three years and banned from the 2006 Winter Games. The scandal led to sweeping judging reforms in the sport.

READ MORE: 9 Doping Scandals That Changed Sports

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6 Scandals That Rocked the Winter Olympics - History

Chinas zero-Covid policy of lockdowns and quarantines has been so strict that the countrys president, Xi Jinping, hasnt left the country in about two years. Now that the highly transmissible omicron variant has been reported in China, what will it mean for the Olympics and for us?

One thing is certain: With the Beijing Olympics a little more than a month away and the politically significant National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party to be held in the fall, the harsh localized lockdowns that have defined Chinas response to the pandemic are likely to persist throughout 2022, maybe even longer.

Chinas policy is basically the polar opposite of how the US has been trying to live with the virus. Any positive case is quarantined. Contact tracing, enabled through surveillance tech and artificial intelligence, can pinpoint a flare-up: Buildings, city blocks, or even whole neighborhoods are sealed when a case is reported. Its pretty brutal. Its a blunt tool, said Megan Greene, an economist with the Kroll Institute. Yet as a result of the policy, China has had many, many fewer deaths.

But zero Covid is going to be much more difficult to implement with a more transmissible variant, and the lessened effectiveness of Chinese vaccines against variants suggests that this policy will only be hardened. (To be fair, two doses of the mRNA vaccines arent doing great in preventing omicron infection, according to initial studies, although they still offer strong protection against severe illness.)

On the surface, [the spread of the new variant] seems to have vindicated that approach, said public health expert Yanzhong Huang of Seton Hall University. They seem to be confident with the existing approach and strict implementation. And that existing approach had an effect on markets and supply chains, and now its likely to do that again.

Just a few cases of omicron have appeared in China so far. One infected person in a southern city bordering on Vietnam has caused 200,000 people to go into lockdown and the city of 13 million to be shut down, according to the Washington Post. With the Lunar New Year approaching, experts say even more precautionary measures, such as travel bans, may come next.

The countrys leadership will now face a major public health headache as the omicron variant collides with the Beijing Olympics. The February games were going to be a chance to celebrate China on the global stage, and now the prospect of athletes coming from across the world will put a spotlight on what many see as a severe policy of lockdowns, one that is much more intense than Japans last summer. I think omicron coinciding with the Olympics is keeping a lot of people up at night in Beijing, said former diplomat Daniel Russel of the Asia Society.

Over the last two years, with certain products missing from our favorite stores and crucial items like N95 masks and Covid-19 tests sometimes in short supply, weve all learned about the fragility of the supply chain. Electronics, cars, and consumer products have been highly sensitive to these types of disruption.

Many shortages are connected to Chinas lockdowns: A single case can close down a giant port. But China is so big that many instances of lockdowns at a local level have gone under the medias radar, notes economist George Magnus of Oxford University. Shutdowns have been happening constantly without global consequences. A small town of a million in the middle of the countrys butterfly-wing effects are obviously pretty small, but a big entrept in a coastal province in China will be observed and commented upon, Magnus said.

The good news is, despite some shortages, supply chains have proved mostly resilient and major retailers have adjusted. Its amazing how well supply chains have held up, said David Dollar, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution think tank. China is big enough that its shown it can lock down a particular port for coronavirus reasons, but its got 20 other ports.

Experts are divided on how consumers will feel the effect of omicron. Even localized shutdowns at Chinas manufacturers, ports, or hubs could have an impact, warned Per Hong, an expert on supply chains at the advisory firm Kearney. The chain is only strong as its weakest link, and when it comes to the global supply chain, there are weaknesses everywhere, Hong said.

With demand on the rise in the United States after two years of isolation, everyone seems to be spending right now there will be some shortages, and its very difficult to predict what will be in short supply in the coming months. Supply chain disruptions can take up to half a year to be felt by consumers.

The Chinese economy was already slowing down because of the burst of the Chinese real estate bubble and a crackdown on tech companies, like e-commerce giant Alibaba. Now, with omicron entering the mix, economists warn of less growth in China, which will also have effects on the US economy. China pulled us out of the global recession because it has so much demand globally. This time we know we cant rely on China to pull us out of it since theyre in a slowdown, said Greene, the Kroll Institute economist.

China may be trying to control the weather to rid cities of smog and turn the sky blue for the Olympics. Millions will watch remotely, with spectator-less stadiums as backdrops. But more important than how Beijing projects itself in the Olympics is how the zero-Covid policy affects Chinas place in the world.

What experts call draconian policies are likely to stay in place past the Olympics and until the Party Congress in the fall, maybe long after.

Though economic knock-on effects are concerning for China and the world, a bigger issue might be the isolation of China. If the rest of the world learned to live with Covid, is China going to be the only country that locks itself out of conferences, international travel, and students going there? They are going to pay a high price for going this path, Dollar said.

The absence of real communication channels between officials, businesspeople, and students will exacerbate the US-China relationship, according to Russel. And it might lead China to be a lot more socially distant. The most extreme and usually the most paranoid actors in both systems get the final word, Russel said. The insulation has been stripped off the wires of the complicated relationship, and the wires have been exposed. Itd be very easy for a crossed wire to short-circuit the relationship.

For analysts like Gabriel Wildau of the consulting firm Teneo, it means he hasnt visited China since 2019. Neither have most of his friends or colleagues. I do worry about the long-term impact, he said. The human relationships formed are really important for the US-China relationship.

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Can China keep out omicron and still hold the 2022 Winter Olympics? - Vox.com

In October of 2009, the International Olympic Committee voted to have golf at the 2016 games in Rio, Brazil. For the first time in 112 years, the best players in the world would be put on a global stage with the ability to compete for something modern golfers have never had a chance to a gold medal.

Not Jack, not Arnold, not Gary, nor Tiger have ever had a chance to compete for Olympic fame.

Despite the opportunity, many of the worlds best players withdrew from the games citing the Zika virus as the reason for concern. Then World No. 1 Jason Day, Rory McIlroy, Dustin Johnson, and Jordan Spieth are just some of the stars who decided against donning their national colors.

The good thing for golf: The eventual medal winners on both the mens and womens sides were fantastic. Justin Rose took home gold as Henrik Stenson and Matt Kuchar stood on the other two steps of the podium. Inbee Park won the womens event, while Lydia Ko grabbed silver.

After a delay due to COVID-19, the games best made their way to Tokyo earlier this year. This time around, the Americans swept gold. Xander Schauffele and Nelly Korda added to their already impressive resumes, hanging a little bling in their trophy cases.

Despite the incredible result, the events fell a bit flat.

Im not sure if it was the time difference, the golf course, the weak field outside of the top several names, it just lacked some juice. The simple fix: Change the format.

Imagine Xander Schauffele and Nelly Korda teeing it up as a pair. Or Danielle Kang and Collin Morikawa. Or Rory McIlroy and Solheim Cup star Leona Maguire. How fun would that be?

Weve seen mixed pairs before. Bubba Watson and Lexi Thompson just played together at the QBE Shootout earlier this month.

Like we see with the Ryder Cup and Solheim Cup, the format could differ depending on the day. Thursday: Four-ball. Friday: Foursomes. Alternating between the two throughout the weekend until winners are crowned Sunday afternoon.

Golf fans have long pondered the idea of having mixed events on the schedule on an annual basis. Watching Ko and Spieth battle down the stretch on a Summer Sunday would be as good as it gets.

What does everyone love about the Ryder and Solheim Cups? Two players from the same country, rooting and playing for each other, and displaying an intensity we dont see every week. Why not do the same thing in the Olympics?

Like a mixed-event format, alternating from Four-ball and Foursomes would create an incredible product for the Olympics.

The venue for the 2024 Olympic games is Le Golf National, and if that name rings familiar it should, as it hosted the 2018 Ryder Cup. One can only hope that in the next few years we see a shift in the format.

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Olympic golf: How it can be made better, and in turn, more enjoyable - usatoday.com

Difficult as it may be for a large segment of the playing population to accept, dropping out of the Olympics in conjunction with shifting the holiday recess up by a day was the easy part for the NHL.

The hard part all lays ahead. The NHL and NHLPA must create guidelines that might feature reintroduction of taxi squads and the adoption of cap exemptions in response to COVID-related roster issues. Sources have told The Post that talks on these issues began on Wednesday following disposition of the Olympics.

Bringing back the taxi squad, which last year had a four-player limit, seems inevitable. It makes no sense for the NHL to adopt more stringent health protocols including daily testing and denying entry to practice facilities to those players who do not produce a negative result, all the while having teams call up players from the AHL, who are not under the same protocols.

The league must reschedule 48 games ideally as many as possible into the original blank slate existing from Feb. 3 to Feb. 23 while attempting to create equitable calendars under the scenario where 12 teams have missed two games or fewer and three have had five or three matches postponed.

At this point the Feb. 5 All-Star extravaganza in Vegas remains on the schedule, so that will have to be factored into the mix. Wed say we have no idea why, but that would be false. The idea why can be spelled in four letters. Namely: E-S-P-N.

As the business of reconfiguring the schedule grid begins, we have also been told that each team will be given a bye period for what would likely be five days within the previously scheduled break.

And then, the league and union, with advise-and-consent from affiliated physicians and infectious disease experts, are going to have to consider whether there will come the time that it will be safe to allow asymptomatic personnel who have tested positive to remain in good standing and continue to play.

It would seem that the first step toward that end would be to require booster shots for all personnel. That is a decision that largely will fall to the NHLPA and its membership. There will be no unilateral mandate from the league.

The decision to withdraw was out of the players hands. Once the schedule was materially disrupted, and it was after the wave of positive results and postponements over the last week, then the NHL had the authority and responsibility, in this case to make the call.

It is unclear how the U.S. and Canada will fill their squads for the Beijing Games. Former Rangers coach David Quinn, originally named as an assistant to head man Mike Sullivan for Team USA, was the only non-NHL affiliated coach named to the staff. Quinn would thus stand to become the Yanks head coach if either GM Billy Guerin or Logan Roy does not disrupt the natural line of succession. An announcement will be forthcoming from USA Hockey.

The decision to withdraw had become inevitable but it does not make it less bitter for the players who had been looking forward to the first best-on-best international competition since the 2014 Sochi Games. That includes Mika Zibanejad, already named to Team Sweden.

I understand it to a certain degree, I guess, but that obviously doesnt make it better, No. 93 told The Post on Wednesday. This was a conversation that had started earlier about the possibility of the league pulling us out of it because of COVID and postponed games.

Over the last couple of weeks with more positive tests and more [games] postponed, I guess the questions in my head started to rise and I was hoping for no more games to be postponed so we could still go, but that was not the case. It is disappointing, its a tournament that I wanted to play with Sweden. You never get a chance to get all your best players and play against the best from all the other countries. Thats unfortunate.

Theres only so much that we could do as players, Zibanejad said. Again, its disappointing for sure. Its not the news I wanted. Even though with all the difficulties going on around the world and in China, even for the Olympics, its still a tournament I always looked forward to watch and now to be playing. Being one of the three players named beforehand, it got me even more excited.

There is one possible salve to the wound and that would be if the Olympics are postponed until next year, the way the Tokyo Summer Games were postponed from 2020 to 2021. In that case, the NHL and Zibanejad would be able to go next year.

Now, though, it is about making plans for next week.

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NHL has tougher COVID-19 decisions ahead after pulling out of Olympics - New York Post

Parents planning to take their kids skiing and snowboarding over school break this winter can expect to find crowded slopes, as the pandemic continues to dampen indoor activities and the Olympic Games in February boostsinterest in alpine sports.

Season passes at the Otis Ridge Ski Area in Otis sold out before the first snowfall. And anyone hoping to borrow a set of children's skis for the entire winter is too late. All 300 of Otis Ridge's loaner pairs were already reserved in November.

"The amount of people that came out for seasonal rentals, pre-season, was huge," said General Manager Eric Van Oostveen. "Like, numbers we've never seen before."

Some skis are still available for daily rentals, along with single-day lift tickets.

The early bookings at Otis Ridge follow a record-breaking season for tickets and revenue, Van Oostveen said. Resorts across the country went gangbusters, too, according to the National Ski Area Association. Business in the Rockies, for example, was among the best ever.

Novice youngsters and grownups who hadn't carved their way down a mountain in years took up skiing and snowboarding just to get out of the house at time when there was little else to do.

Some got hooked. And though there are more options this winter, many families may remain more comfortable outdoors.

Plus, Olympic stars like Shaun White and Mikaela Shiffrin will soon be going for gold at the Winter Games in Beijing, potentially inspiring TV viewers to get out in the snow.

"The Olympic year can definitely create a spike of enthusiasm," said Al Fletcher, president of Nashoba Valley Ski Area in Westford. "It certainly can translate people into beginners, which is what we're known for."

Fletcher and Van Oostveen agree New England ski areas will likely enjoy good business again this season, as long as Mother Nature drops enough powder to keep snow-making costs down.

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Ski areas expect a busy winter because of the pandemic and Olympics - WBUR