‘Here he is, the man of the moment!’ said the Team USA press attaché when Casey Dawson walked into the Olympic mixed zone.
In trudged a speed skater no-one had heard of 12 hours ago but whose barely believable journey to Beijing briefly captured the gaze of all here at the Games.
Understandably bleary-eyed and almost clutching the rail in front to stand up - and stay awake - a very jetlagged 21-year-old from Utah told the story of his journey around the world.
“It’s been quite a journey to get here,” said Dawson, in what could be the biggest understatement of this or any century.
Dawson tested positive for Covid three weeks ago. After 45 PCR tests, he shed the virus enough to come back negative on hyper-sensitive Chinese tests.
His first negatives came on February 1 - when he believed his dream was back on, but the amount of virus in his system kept bouncing between negative and positive thresholds.
“When I had a negative test, I was riding high, but when I was positive I’d be on the floor crying, believing I’d never get here,” he said.
Based on the IOC Playbook, Dawson was initially led to believe he needed to test negative twice to enter China. But he was told late by the USOPC that in fact it was four.
All of those coming into the closed loop have to take tests from approved laboratories.
At the last moment, the laboratory that Dawson tested in was struck off the approved list, voiding all the tests he’d taken.
That meant four more tests, two lost days, and an agonising wait as he kept oscillating between negative and positive.
“I had so many times when I thought I was going to come here and it kept being pushed back and pushed back,” he said.
“I didn’t believe I would actually get here until I stepped on the first flight.”
Dawson’s journey began on 5 February with a flight from Salt Lake City to Atlanta, a layover, then a red-eye to Paris and then finally a red-eye to Beijing.
Having flown 11,000 miles over 25 hours, he landed in Beijing at 6:05am on the morning of the men’s 1,500m, slated to start at 6:30pm. He barely slept.
“I was able to get some sleep on a couple of the flights, but it was definitely hard,” said Dawson. “I was really stressed out just getting here. It was hard to get sleep.”
Dawson landed in Beijing and tested negative. But there was only one problem - his luggage had been lost.
He had packed a racing kit in his carry-on luggage just in case and had everything he needed to compete, other than his skates that is. They are still in Paris.
“I hope to get it soon, before the team pursuit,” he said. “They’re trying to fly it over.
“It’s the cherry on top of this whole situation. If I get my luggage or not, I’m still an Olympian.”
Dawson’s coach reached out to Latvia’s national team coach and he borrowed skates from a fellow competitor, Harald Silovs.
“I’m super grateful he leant me his blades,” he said. “It was hard to be comfortable on them - it’s more of a mental challenge, getting over that barrier of a different set-up.”
Dawson then went out and skated the 1500m and didn’t finish last - surely one of the best 28th places ever at the Olympics, 0.58 seconds quicker than Belgian Mathias Voste.
“Stepping to the line was the biggest thing for me,” he said. “I never thought I would, I thought my individual chances had gone with the wind.
“Just stepping on that line was amazing.”
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