Australia's first athletes will compete at the Beijing Winter Olympic Games later today, two days before the opening ceremony signals the traditional start to the two-week sporting extravaganza.
Every Olympic Games delivers drama. For Australian curlers Tahli Gill and Dean Hewitt, the first Australians to qualify for the Olympic sport, their drama began just after midnight on Saturday when their JL8681 flight from Tokyo touched down in Beijing.
They were met by more PPE-clad security staff than there were passengers on their plane.
The immigration process was further delayed by the need to first have another COVID test, despite already showing proof of two negative tests in the three days before flying.
The Beijing airport test is fast, efficient and a little brutal. It feels like they are scraping not just inside your nose for any evidence of the virus, but prodding up into your brain to search the dark corners for hiding COVID fragments intent on sneaking into the Olympics and ruining the Games.
Hewitt was fine. Gill tested positive. Neither panicked. The first call she made was to the Australian Olympic Committee's (AOC) medical team.
"Basically, it was pretty positive," she said, no pun intended.
"They just ran me through the process and what was going to happen over the next 24 hours."
So began a 24-hour period of complete isolation — not long in the scheme of things, but an eternity when contemplating whether your debut Olympic experience might be over before it got the chance to begin.
"I stayed somewhat active in my room and just tried to stay as positive and ready to go as possible," she said.
"Just a bit of yoga, just a bit of stretching, staying mindful and stuff like that."
The Australian mixed doubles team is well-liked on the curling circuit. A fourth-placed finish at the last world championships was not enough to see automatic qualification for the Olympics, so they flew to the Netherlands for the final qualification tournament late last year.
They stormed through the competition undefeated and earned their Olympic call-up. The Australian curling community was ecstatic, but so too were some of the opponents they will face in Beijing.
"The curling community is really tight-knit," Hewitt said.
Waiting for the all-clear meant the doubles team lost one full day of training, but they got a quick look at the venue on Monday ahead of a training session on Tuesday before their competition begins on Wednesday evening Beijing time with a match against the USA.
Curling will take place in what was dubbed the Water Cube during the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, now remodelled as the Ice Cube.
Hewitt said the facility is "state of the art". He and Gill just want to get onto the ice to do what they came for.
The mixed doubles will not be the only Australians on the ice. Also making an Olympic debut is curling umpire Sandy Gagnon.
"It's amazing actually, I'm sure just like the athletes, this is the pinnacle … it is very, very exciting," Gagnon said.
"It was a real honour when I was asked to be part of the (umpiring) team. That was over a year-and-a-half ago, so I've known about this for quite a while but, yeah, it's real now."
In a region dominated by China, Japan and South Korea, Gagnon believes Australia is now making inroads and credits the mixed doubles team for helping to build the sport's reputation in Australia.
"I was sitting in my living room with my husband and my son at 2.30am watching the last of their (Olympic qualification) game," Gagnon said.
"[The Olympics] will raise the profile of curling in Australia to a degree it's never been."
While the most pressing issue is the Olympic competition itself, Gill and Hewitt hope the attention they bring will have an impact long past their Games experience.
"Hopefully, we can get a dedicated rink built out of this, that's one of our biggest goals," Hewitt said.
"We're just looking forward to what's to come from Australia."
