BEIJING — Two heroes took the ice on Sheet C at the National Aquatics Centre here Saturday night, wearing jerseys instead of their usual scrubs, carrying brooms instead of stethoscopes. For the next two-plus hours they pushed, swept, called, competed alongside their curling teammates—thousands of miles away from their other respective teams cheering them on.
It is a known reality of these Winter Olympics that many athletes maintain other jobs outside of their sports. Such are the financial demands of chasing a dream overseen by an international sports organization that still clings to the myth of amateurism and pockets the bulk of the profits. Over the past two years, for United States vice skip Nina Roth and Great Britain vice skip Vicky Wright, this has meant doubling as hospital nurses on the front lines of a global pandemic that has killed more than 5.8 million people and upended the lives of billions more.
“It all feels like a blur now, but you just get your head down and go on,” Wright says. “You have good days, you have bad days, just like in sport. And same as having great teammates on the ice, the support’s there, you work together, and you come out with a solution.”
