Golden girl Eileen Gu hits back, Team GB skaters find perfect blend, US athlete's epic journey - Beijing diary

DAWSON’S OLYMPIC ODYSSEY ‘Here he is, the man of the moment!’ said the Team USA press attaché when Casey Dawson walked into the Olympic mixed zone. Ad/> In trudged a speed skater most people had never heard of 12 hours ago but whose barely believable journey to Beijing briefly captured the gaze of all here at the Games. /> Beijing 2022Watch moment flag gets stuck around official's head at Beijing 20226 HOURS AGO Understandably bleary-eyed and almost clutching the rail in front of him to stand up — and stay awake — a very jet-lagged 21-year-old from Utah told the story of his journey around the world.

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.

Dawson’s journey began on February 5 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, where his luggage was lost. Having flown 11,000 miles over 25 hours, he landed just 12 hours before the start of his men’s 1500m competition. “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 was able to get some sleep on a couple of the flights, but it was definitely hard. I was really stressed out just getting here. It was hard to get sleep.