Behind the scenes at the Winter Olympics: Journalists in a bubble, robots making cocktails – USA TODAY

Five Beijing Olympic storylines to know including stars to watch

The Beijing Olympics are the second Games to take place in the pandemic era. Here is what you need to know.

Michelle Hanks, USA TODAY

I'm USA TODAYeditor-in-chief Nicole Carroll, and this is The Backstory, insights into our biggest stories of the week. If you'd like to get The Backstoryin your inbox every week,sign up here.

Lori Nickel thought she was stuck.

The columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, part of the USA TODAY Network, iscovering her first Olympics and missed the window for morning COVID-19 testing. The list of sports Nickel will be covering includes cross country skiing, freestyle skiing and snowboarding, as well as speed skating, and is going to require a fair amount of coordination.

But the first order of business is to leave the hotel. And you cannot leave the hotel without taking your dailycoronavirus test.

"I thought, 'Oh boy, here we go,'" she said. "'I'm quarantined the first day.'"

She asked nearby volunteers for help. They saidthey'd try.

Five minutes later, ayoung Chinese volunteer, in full hazmat suit,was at her doorto give her a COVID-19 test. Nickel was free to go.

She thanked him with Milwaukee Bucks gear.

"I gave him a T-shirt, thehat, everything I had," she said. "And I had a note that I had translated andsimplified in Chinese just saying, 'Thank you so much for helping me.'"

He was thrilled.

"We don't speak the same languages," she said, "but we arestill communicating."

Sometimes the problems are things we can never anticipate.One of our photo editors traveling to the Games was a few seats behind someone on the planewho tested positive atarrival. He's now a "close contact" and must test twice a day, ride in a separate taxi and eat by himself for seven days.

Overall, our journalists' movements aretightly controlled.

In addition to daily testing, media must wear masks at all timesin public spacesand stay a safe distance from others. There is a "mixed zone" after competitions, where athletes will come and talk to reporterssix feet away.AllU.S. athletes and other members of thedelegation must be vaccinated to attend.

Competitions are held across three clusters: Beijing, Yanqing and Zhangjiakou.The Yanqing Zone is approximately 47 milesnorthwest of Beijings city center and the Zhangjiakou Zone is about 112 miles northwest of the capital.

The USA TODAY Network has23 staffers there, distributed across the three zones. It's about a four-hour bus ride toZhangjiakou,the farthest location from Beijing.

"Games organizers in Beijing are taking coronavirus precautionary measures tonew heights," reported USA TODAY foreign correspondentKim Hjelmgaard. "For a start, athletes, coaches, observers and media are separated from 'mainland China' by a closed-loop Olympic bubble thatcordons themoff from the outside world. Most participants arrivein China on special charter flights and enterthe loop as soon as they land.

"Their experiences of China will probably be limited to the airport, a hotel room and Olympic venues, which are connected by a closed transportation system that includes buses, taxis and high-speed trains."

Everyone in the Olympic bubble encounters robots designed to spray disinfectant in thehotels or make cocktails (really). They alsoprepare and deliver food in the press center dining hall. Sports editor Roxanna Scott said with the tight controls, the dining hall is journalists' only entertainment.

Beijing is 13 hours ahead of Eastern Time. We'll be reporting results as they happen. Scott's day starts early and ends past midnight, when she hands off to sports editors back in the U.S.

There are no international spectators, and it's unknown how many locals, if any, will be allowed to attend the Games.Tickets are distributed by organizations affiliated with China's Communist Party. Hjelmgaard reported Chinese authorities requested spectators and teammates clap rather than shout when they want to cheer on athletes, hoping that will cut down on thespread of the virus. Reporters aren't allowed to interview any spectators in the stands.

Visual journalistHarrison Hill is covering his first Olympics. Hillwas supposed to go to the Tokyo Games last summer but caught COVID-19 right beforehand. This time around, his Los Angeles roommates made sure to be "extra safe" around him.

"I felt really good when I didn't get a call in my hotel room," Hill said after his first COVID-19 test in Beijing. "Because if you don't get a call that signals you're good to go."

Hillwill be covering bobsled, skeleton and luge and also the opening ceremony.

"I'm going in withfresh eyes," he said.

Her husband, Nic, and toddler son Nico also tested positive and are quarantined apart.

Taylor is a gold-medal hopeful in two events, monobob and two-man. She said she hadn't been home since Nov. 10 trying to avoid COVID-19, only to get it in Beijing. The three-time Olympic medalist needs to produce consecutive negative tests within a 24-hour span in order to be released from isolation and compete.

Columnist Nancy Armour and visualseditor Sandy Hooper reached out to Taylor to ask if she'd record a video diary for us, to show us what life was like in Olympic quarantine. She did just that, pointing her cellphone around the crowded isolation hotel room. Taylor started the video saying, "Hi, everyone, this is Cribs: Olympic edition, quarantine edition."

Olympian Elana Meyers Taylor shows daily life in COVID isolation

Bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor tested positive for COVID on Jan. 29 inside the Beijing Olympic bubble. Her husband Nic and son Nico also tested positive and are quarantined apart.

Sandy Hooper, USA TODAY

Hooper has been reaching out to athletes and governing bodies for weeks to get video for our coverage. "It's just trying to be creative with the limited access that we have," shesaid.

Armour has covered every Olympics since 1996 and will cover Alpine skiing, womens bobsled and other sports in Beijing. Back in 2008, she wrote, the International Olympic Committeethought giving the Summer Olympics to China would help the country improve its record on human rights, which didn't happen. Armoursays the IOC has sold itself out in giving the Olympics to Beijing a second time.

"Having dazzled the world with the Summer Olympics in 2008, and knowing the Chinese government would spare nothing and no one to do it again, the IOC saw Beijing as the safe and easy choice (for 2022)," Armour wrote this week.

"All it had to do was turn a blind eye when China suppressed dissent among its people. Stripped Hong Kong of its autonomy and cracked down on religious freedom in Tibet. Imprisoned more than a million of the minority Muslim Uyghur population and subjected them to slave labor, forced sterilization and abortion."

Armour said she thinks China isusing this closed COVID-19 loop as an excuse to not allow us to see those types of things: "Normally our news reporter here would be out speaking with regular people in China, he'd be going to Tiananmen Square and talking to people. We don't have the opportunity to do that this time, and I think that's done withpurpose."

Still, points out columnist Christine Brennan, there are reasons to cheer, to hope these Games are successful.

"Why? Not for Chinas leaders no, never for them but for the athletes," she wrote this week. "For most of them, this will be theirone and only chance to compete at an Olympic Games. Its not their fault that the Olympics are here. They had absolutely nothing to do with that decision.

"This is the stage the IOC has given them for the grandest moment of their careers, and in most cases, their young lives."

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Nicole Carroll is the editor-in-chief of USA TODAY. Reach her at EIC@usatoday.com orfollow her onTwitterhere. Thank you forsupporting our journalism.You can subscribe here for $1 a week for 52 weeks.

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Behind the scenes at the Winter Olympics: Journalists in a bubble, robots making cocktails - USA TODAY