Canada medal pace strong, but lagging in gold, at the halfway mark in Beijing

BEIJING — Canada was on pace for another sizable medal haul, albeit more bronze than gold, at the halfway mark of the Winter Olympics.

Canada's team in Beijing had earned 13 medals (one goal, four silver, eight bronze) by Saturday. That tied for fourth with Russia behind front-runner Norway (17) and Germany and Austria (14).

The Canadian Olympic Committee's stated gold medal in Beijing is keeping its athletes out of COVID-19 isolation, getting them to the start line and letting the chips fall where they may.

"The goal was to come here, to come here safe and to compete and from there, the athletes will deliver," COC chief sport officer Eric Myles told The Canadian Press.

As of Saturday, none of Canada's 215 athletes had to isolate after their arrival in Beijing.

Figure skater Keegan Messing missed the team event, but landed in time to compete in men's singles. He'd tested positive in Canada and needed to produce the requisite number of negative tests to travel.

Hockey player Emily Clark was pulled from a game because of an inconclusive test result, but she returned to Canada's lineup to play the following day.

Myles believes extra measures and testing the COC implemented before and after departure from Canada, beyond what Beijing required, has kept the virus from dashing Olympic dreams so far.

"Halftime is halftime. There's a lot ahead of us to come," Myles said. "We feel safe, but it would be really a big mistake right now to put our guard down. That's the message and the attitude that we have right now. We don't change anything we've put in place right now."

Canada's chef de mission says athletes have sacrificed too much in the weeks heading into Beijing to be incautious now.

"They've done so much," Catriona Le May Doan