Armenian team says their COVID test was false positive

[NanaPat]

I very much doubt if ANY coaches police their skaters' social media in the sense of "allowing" posts to be published. If I post something intemperate on Golden Skate, do you wonder why my husband (or my grown children) "allowed" it? My posts are my own responsibility, and they are certainly not pre-approved or pre-read by anyone!

I will believe the coaches have made a statement of any kind when they make a statement. In the meantime, it's not fair to find people responsible for things they haven't done.

 

[Amei]

I very much doubt if ANY coaches police their skaters' social media in the sense of "allowing" posts to be published. If I post something intemperate on Golden Skate, do you wonder why my husband (or my grown children) "allowed" it? My posts are my own responsibility, and they are certainly not pre-approved or pre-read by anyone!

I will believe the coaches have made a statement of any kind when they make a statement. In the meantime, it's not fair to find people responsible for things they haven't done.

Whether right or wrong there are plenty of instances where someone posts something online and it impacts their job. So it's a reasonable question to wonder how their coaching team feels about the video where they attempt to make the ISU look like they tried to ruin their Olympic dream.

 

[Supernovaimplosion]

Why would the ISU even offer a rushed second test? If it were negative would they compete?

 

[pearly]

I very much doubt if ANY coaches police their skaters' social media in the sense of "allowing" posts to be published. If I post something intemperate on Golden Skate, do you wonder why my husband (or my grown children) "allowed" it? My posts are my own responsibility, and they are certainly not pre-approved or pre-read by anyone!

I will believe the coaches have made a statement of any kind when they make a statement. In the meantime, it's not fair to find people responsible for things they haven't done.

What Amei said. This isn't just an Insta story about what they had for lunch, this is a video about how their competitive career may have been affected, how the governing body of their sport may have interfered and how they are working on a solution. It's very political. And the coaches are now for sure aware that it was made.

 

[gliese]

I very much doubt if ANY coaches police their skaters' social media in the sense of "allowing" posts to be published. If I post something intemperate on Golden Skate, do you wonder why my husband (or my grown children) "allowed" it? My posts are my own responsibility, and they are certainly not pre-approved or pre-read by anyone!

I will believe the coaches have made a statement of any kind when they make a statement. In the meantime, it's not fair to find people responsible for things they haven't done.

Social media guidelines have been on every skating contract I've ever signed, but not for stuff like this. It's for stuff like partying and alcohol (even for skaters over 21), swearing, fighting, nowadays not following COVID guidelines, etc.

 

[NanaPat]

I understand that social media posts can have consequences. What I question is that the coaches actually vet each post IN ADVANCE or that failure to react immediately indicates approval. Especially in this case, where the post were fairly incoherent and it wasn't exactly clear what the skaters were saying (or was it just one of the two skaters who is talking?).

They seem to be accusing SOMEBODY of doing them wrong (using the word "robbed"), but it isn't very clear to me who they think was responsible or just exactly what they did wrong.

I hope someone is privately advising them to be more temperate in their language and demeanor, and it may well be the coaches.

I don't think the coaches need to "take sides" at this point, and a failure to react publicly doesn't mean they have approved of the skater's posts.

 

[gliese]

I understand that social media posts can have consequences. What I question is that the coaches actually vet each post IN ADVANCE or that failure to react immediately indicates approval. Especially in this case, where the post were fairly incoherent and it wasn't exactly clear what the skaters were saying (or was it just one of the two skaters who is talking?).

Ah yes, that's only specific cases such as Instagram accounts that are attached to sponsorships in my experience. Losing a sponsorship means a lost career for some, so they're careful when money is attached.

 

[pearly]

I understand that social media posts can have consequences. What I question is that the coaches actually vet each post IN ADVANCE or that failure to react immediately indicates approval. Especially in this case, where the post were fairly incoherent and it wasn't exactly clear what the skaters were saying (or was it just one of the two skaters who is talking?).

They seem to be accusing SOMEBODY of doing them wrong (using the word "robbed"), but it isn't very clear to me who they think was responsible or just exactly what they did wrong.

I hope someone is privately advising them to be more temperate in their language and demeanor, and it may well be the coaches.

I don't think the coaches need to "take sides" at this point, and a failure to react publicly doesn't mean they have approved of the skater's posts.

Yes. However. Montreal (Gadbois, that is) has very strict rules regarding how skaters have to behave and interact in order to train there together. And I cannot imagine a couple would think "we'll make a video and imply we were wronged on purpose by the ISU" and not think "our coaches may think this is a bad idea and we'll get in trouble".

 

[4everchan]

Here is an example on how to handle false positive testing

https://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/winter/curling/curling-world-men-covid-false-positives-1.5984804

1) nobody was disqualified or anything like that...
2) they did contact tracing and everyone was isolated.
3) athletes, especially those remaining in the event ( 4 teams ) were tested multiple times
4) competition was postponed for one full day while the organization makes appropriate testing and secures the bubble
5) competition resumes, after multiple negative tests results confirmed that the samples had been contaminated.

 

[karne]

Here is an example on how to handle false positive testing

https://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/winter/curling/curling-world-men-covid-false-positives-1.5984804

1) nobody was disqualified or anything like that...
2) they did contact tracing and everyone was isolated.
3) athletes, especially those remaining in the event ( 4 teams ) were tested multiple times
4) competition was postponed for one full day while the organization makes appropriate testing and secures the bubble
5) competition resumes, after multiple negative tests results confirmed that the samples had been contaminated.

Not so fast.

If I read this correctly, the players who tested false positive were "exiting" the bubble. As in, they had already been eliminated and were leaving the tournament. They did not return a false positive mere hours before competition. We were not given timelines, so it's hard to tell.

 

[4everchan]

Not so fast.

If I read this correctly, the players who tested false positive were "exiting" the bubble. As in, they had already been eliminated and were leaving the tournament. They did not return a false positive mere hours before competition. We were not given timelines, so it's hard to tell.

you didn't read correctly. Also, I had been watching the event every day... so even without a timeline in this article, information was transparent. As a viewer, I understood that there were some positive tests, and that the event was postponed until further investigation would occur. This was announced late Friday, and they shut down Saturday's events. When it was deemed safe again, they announced the revised schedule for late games on Sunday.
1) 4 players were tested with a soon to be found out false positive.
2) 3 of them were indeed eliminated, so were about to leave the bubble but were isolated to make sure that they wouldn't put anyone else at risk
3) 1 of them was part of a team that was still competing : the day off allowed for further testing and after many samples, he tested negative, the tournament was allowed to resume safely. Extra measures were taken (I watched : all week, players did not have to wear masks, they did during the last day of competition).
In order to do so, the schedule was completely rearranged as both semi-finals and both medal games were played at the same time, on one day, instead of one at a time, on successive days. Of course, that means that some matches that were planned to be televised were not.

ALSO : do not forget that all players had arrived in Calgary prior to the tournament to have an on-site quarantine post-travel. It was indeed very surprising to hear about Covid issues, considering all the measure installed with a real bubble in place.

 

[Koatterce]

Not so fast.

If I read this correctly, the players who tested false positive were "exiting" the bubble. As in, they had already been eliminated and were leaving the tournament. They did not return a false positive mere hours before competition. We were not given timelines, so it's hard to tell.

All players had to quarantine for 2 weeks before arrival (last 72h strict), and do a full quarantine for 1 week before the event, with tests before arriving, after arriving, throughout the quarantine, and before competing/practicing. The last pre-competition tests were done April 1. All protocols approved by all levels of health authorities.

The false positives occurred on April 9 (came back in the evening) from curlers preparing to leave. Contact tracing was done, close contacts notified, and all curlers and staff (regardless of whether or not they were close contacts) were then required to isolate and were tested. All games (5 remaining) were on hold until testing and results were completed.
April 10 afternoon press conference: 4 cases affecting 3 teams. 4 additional teams may have come in contact with the affected. A decision on how to proceed (or not) with the event would be made after results are back. Close contacts are required to isolate for 14 days.

April 11 (morning), results came back, all athletes & close contact coaches/officials tested negative. Unaffected teams were permitted to leave. Remaining games will be squeezed into 1 day. One positive test from before was from a playoff team, same sample confirmed true positive, but second test came back negative. This player will not be allowed to play (note: this changed later). New guidelines - players must remain masked while playing, must get tested before and after each game. The aforementioned player has been previously vaccinated (2 doses) and became allowed to play very shortly before the competition. Facts surrounding the positive-negative-vaccinated player were considered strong enough to allow them to play, deemed minimal risk after meeting with health authorities. TSN camera operators pulled out of broadcasting this game due to camera operators not feeling safe.

All 4 athletes who tested positive on April 10 tested negative on April 11 (hugely unlikely had those been true positives). The next competition scheduled for the bubble is postponed for one day. April 12, after extensive investigation, the 4 positive tests deemed to be false due to contamination. Follow up testing was undertaken during this process. All athletes who initially needed to undergo the 14-day quarantine (due to close contacts) were then permitted to leave. Overall, the competition was the same length as originally planned, though more games were played on the last day due to the hold.

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Now let's compare this to ISU worlds. Skaters must test negative before arrival. There was minimal quarantine, just the 1 day upon arrival while waiting for test result. And an additional test no later than 4 days after arrival. Possibly additional testing based on schedule. Testing upon exit is optional.

ISU guidelines state that if a skater tests positive after arrival, they are not allowed to participate. They must quarantine for at least 7 days, where the last 2 days cannot have symptoms. Close contacts must be identified and isolated for further check and possible quarantine. Additional testing may be completed at the ISU/medical team's discretion.

Based on what we know, Simon's positive test occurred shortly before the competition began. Apparently, close contacts then tested negative (this doesn't mean much due to incubation period). Based on the ISU guidelines, since he tested positive, he is not allowed to participate. Additional testing was done, but results did not arrive before the competition. Even if Simon was a curler, he still wouldn't have been allowed to play. And regardless, the ISU followed their own guidelines.

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There are so many more factors preventing potential covid in the curling bubble (i.e. quarantine, strict measures), and more reasons to question whether the tests were false positive (i.e. one person was vaccinated, all 4 players came back negative the next day). Curling also had the luxury of putting the competition on hold for a day, without changing the overall length of the competition, so no players had to stay behind longer than planned. This wouldn't have been possible for the ISU due to the nature of skating competitions. Regardless, the ISU published covid guidelines beforehand and followed them.

 

[4everchan]

^ thanks for providing more details... but what if the ISU had shut down the entire event for 1 day... to investigate and test.... all events could have been postponed without harming the competition. I will make an assumption here... so forgive me about this... but I am sure that ALL the athletes present would have been OK with a pause in the event, in order to ensure -
1) the safety of all concerned
2) avoiding that some athletes are left out of competing for a false positive

-even if that would have meant missing the gala.

There were other options with the schedule. And of course, there were stricter protocols that could have been followed from the get go, which would have strengthen safety for everyone.

 

[Gabby30]

The issue is not that the dream is over or whether they have another chance in 6 months. The real pain is the athletes were at their prime at that moment with a program that they had practiced for 2 years. It was their chance to show the international judges and the world how far they had come and that they were competing to earn the spot. Nebelhorne will be a completely new program with very little time to perfect it. The world will not be watching as they were at the Stockholm Worlds. No matter what the ISU decides to do they will never reclaim that opportunity.
The bigger picture is that the ISU was not equipped to handle a false positive. This will become a major issue to all Olympians heading to the competition of their lives. The fact is that an orthopedic surgeon was the Doctor overseeing and evaluating the Covid tests. This in itself should not instill any confidence for anyone taking a covid test at this event. The fact is that there were several hours between the time the positive test and the actual competition. More than enough time to redo the test several times over, which if done quick enough would have revealed the first test was false. The test was redone hours after the team leader pleaded for a retest. The result came hours after the competition had ended. To make matters worse, the competitors were told it was positive when in fact the paper test result that came the following day revealed it was negative. This should be a very scary thought to any athlete.

How do we know they were in their prime? A lot of skaters bombed, why is it expected that they would be flawless if they could compete?

 

[Amei]

The issue is not that the dream is over or whether they have another chance in 6 months. The real pain is the athletes were at their prime at that moment with a program that they had practiced for 2 years. It was their chance to show the international judges and the world how far they had come and that they were competing to earn the spot. Nebelhorne will be a completely new program with very little time to perfect it. The world will not be watching as they were at the Stockholm Worlds. No matter what the ISU decides to do they will never reclaim that opportunity.
The bigger picture is that the ISU was not equipped to handle a false positive. This will become a major issue to all Olympians heading to the competition of their lives. The fact is that an orthopedic surgeon was the Doctor overseeing and evaluating the Covid tests. This in itself should not instill any confidence for anyone taking a covid test at this event. The fact is that there were several hours between the time the positive test and the actual competition. More than enough time to redo the test several times over, which if done quick enough would have revealed the first test was false. The test was redone hours after the team leader pleaded for a retest. The result came hours after the competition had ended. To make matters worse, the competitors were told it was positive when in fact the paper test result that came the following day revealed it was negative. This should be a very scary thought to any athlete.

You need to talk to the Armenian team then, their video implies to the non-educated fan about qualifying for the Olympics that their Olympic dream is tied the Armenian Fed getting a resolution from the ISU.

Regarding their chances of qualifying at Worlds - they would have needed to increase their PB score by more than 5 points to qualify for the FD, so it wasn't anywhere close to a given that they would have qualified. Now going into Nebelhorn they'll have the sympathy card in their back pockets

The bigger picture is that the ISU was not equipped to handle a false positive. This will become a major issue to all Olympians heading to the competition of their lives. This will become a major issue to all Olympians heading to the competition of their lives. The fact is that an orthopedic surgeon was the Doctor overseeing and evaluating the Covid tests. This in itself should not instill any confidence for anyone taking a covid test at this event. The fact is that there were several hours between the time the positive test and the actual competition. More than enough time to redo the test several times over, which if done quick enough would have revealed the first test was false. The test was redone hours after the team leader pleaded for a retest. The result came hours after the competition had ended. To make matters worse, the competitors were told it was positive when in fact the paper test result that came the following day revealed it was negative. This should be a very scary thought to any athlete.

Well the 'false positive' is a much bigger deal as someone else has mentioned in this thread - if a skater has taken 2 covid tests and 1 is positive and 1 negative - which do you put more weight in believing? Supposed false positives are rare, which is probably why the ISU didn't have a contingency plan. I'm surprised they let them even retest and potentially would have let them on the ice had the second test come back prior to the RD. How does the ISU knowing that skater A has had a test that says they have COVID on the ice around other athletes for warmup and in the same backstage area pending their time to skate, I mean backstage they could theoretically find a room to stick them in a room by themselves, but on the ice it wouldn't be fair to give them 1-on-1 ice time for a warmup.

Actually regarding the retest: I wonder if someone with the ISU agreed to the retest and then someone else behind closed doors raised a red flag similar to how several posters on here have - woah, which test are we going to believe if number 2 cam back negative and the ISU then realized how bad of a position they were in with allowing the retest and then they didn't encourage any speed on getting the results of the second test.

**@Snowman2, do you know what the procedure was on the test, was it a dedicated lab that was running the tests for skaters or was it sent to a lab with the Swedish public? Your comment indicates you have some knowledge on how they were doing the testing.

 

[4everchan]

The issue is that to do more than the one counter-testing, the ISU needed to postpone the event. Like they did in the Calgary bubble. Once a test is found to be positive, the entire integrity of the bubble is at risk... not just the safety of one skater, but of the whole event. How did that skater get positive after testing negative upon arrival? That means that if Simon truly had been positive, there were risks that other skaters, coaches, officials or staff would also test positive later on. Incubation is not the same for everyone. So the ISU just tried to wash away the problem. They were very lucky that the test ended up being a false positive. In Calgary, they made sure that the integrity of the bubble was not compromised before resuming activities.