Skeleton-U.S Virgin Islands' Tannenbaum watches dream slip away in isolation

YANQING, China : As her rivals thundered down the sinuous Yanqing sliding track on Tuesday preparing for the chance of glory later this week, Katie Tannenbaum was stuck in he COVID-19 isolation room for the seventh day, watching her Olympic dream slide away.

The sole representative of the U.S. Virgin Islands is desperate to get out.

Tannenbaum tested positive in one of the Olympic villages, though she has now had several days of what should be negative tests, she said. But the standards for what would allow her to get out keep changing.

"The IOC (International Olympic Committee) won't even provide a clear definition of what constitutes a negative test result," she said in a message sent from her isolation room.

"It's really hard mentally. This isn't the Olympic experience I imagined," added the 36-year-old.

"They don't provide any excuses, someone will just say the other person you got information from was wrong.

"But the IOC won't provide definitive information in writing. It's just general disorganization ... which for an event of this scale should not be happening."

Tannenbaum is now in a race against time as Wednesday is the last day for women's skeleton training.

"At this point, I have to participate in this and successfully complete every training run in order to be eligible to compete," she said.

"I am not confident I will be released from isolation in time, despite the fact that all of the CT values of my COVID tests are coming in above 35 at this time, most are well above 40."

Before the Games the IOC said organisers had changed the positivity threshold nL1N2U40DE so only participants whose PCR results with a Cycle Threshold (CT) of less than 35 would be considered positive.

The U.S. Virgin Islands National Olympic