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The Jan. 6-13 championships in Ottawa, where Canada's figure
skating squad for Beijing will be selected, will be held without
spectators given the threat of the highly contagious Omicron
variant of the coronavirus.
"We have been so super careful. We haven't seen really too much
of anybody at all," Kirsten Moore-Towers, who along with pairs
partner Michael Marinaro won gold at the 2020 Skate Canada
Challenge, told a conference call on Tuesday.
"Obviously we are wearing masks wherever we go and pretty much
limiting ourselves to the grocery store, our training facilities
and home and just trying our very best to ensure that we are not
going to be testing positive."
Marinaro said he and Moore-Towers had originally planned to fly
to Ottawa for the competition but in a bid to limit contact with
other people will instead make the roughly 4-1/2 hour drive
there instead.
"There's not really anybody we are in contact with outside of
our coaches and the grocery store. Pretty much the only
problematic thing is the grocery store," said Marinaro.
"Outside of that, for the past three weeks there has been zero,
zero contact and just trying to stay as safe as possible to the
best of our abilities."
Those competing this week do not have to show proof of a
negative COVID-19 test, according to media reports, but Piper
Gilles, who won ice dance gold with Paul Poirier at 2021 Skate
Canada International, said she trusts organisers will take
necessary precautions to make sure everything is safe.
Gilles also said that she and Poirier are doing their best to
stay focused on the things they can control rather than fret
over the consequences of a positive COVID-19 test.
"We know how big of a deal this is and our Olympic dreams can be
taken away within days if something like this happens but we
can't really look at it because if we do that, we're gonna drive
ourselves absolutely crazy," said Gilles. "And that's not good.
It's not good mentally."
Poirier said they have plenty of experience competing amid the
COVID-19 outbreak and have found ways to minimize their risk by
finding quiet places for warmups and keeping distance from other
competitors, coaches and support staff.
"We've been isolating from pretty much everyone besides going to
the training rink for several weeks now and will be doing the
same going into the Games as well," said Poirier.
"We understand how high the stakes are right now and how much
COVID is really just being transmitted everywhere in the
community around us."
(Reporting by Frank Pingue in Toronto; Editing by Toby Davis)
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