Australian curling team set to start Beijing Winter Olympics competition before opening ceremony

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