Canadian Olympians Against Skipping the COVID-19 Vaccine Line

FILE PHOTO: Rio 2016 Olympic Games – Wrestling – Victory Ceremony – Women’s 75 kg Freestyle Victory Ceremony – Carioca Arena 2 – Rio de Janeiro, Brazil – 08/18/2016. Erica Wiebe (CAN) from Canada kisses her medal. REUTERS / Toru Hanai

For some Canadian athletes heading to the Tokyo Olympics this summer, the idea of ​​receiving a COVID-19 vaccine before a fellow citizen in greater need would undermine the meaning of being an Olympic athlete.

Vaccinations against COVID-19 will not be mandatory for athletes and team personnel at the Games, but Dick Pound, a Canadian and the longest-serving member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), has said that priority should be given to athletes. for the Olympics to take place as planned.

The IOC has said it is against athletes skipping the ranks in their countries, while the Canadian Olympic Committee has said it was preparing for the Tokyo Games under the assumption that vaccines might not be widely available for their athletes before they open on July 23.

“We really need the vaccine to reach the arms of the people who are most at risk, those in long-term care homes, those on the front lines,” said Canadian fighter Erica Wiebe, reigning Olympic champion in the 75 kg category. Reuters.

Wiebe, who traveled to Serbia last month for the Individual World Cup after the longest competition break of her career, said her participation in the Tokyo Games did not depend on being vaccinated, even though her sport requires a close contact with other competitors.

Some countries have already started vaccinating athletes or plan to vaccinate their Olympic delegations before the Games. Israel’s Olympic Committee said on Wednesday it had already inoculated half of its Olympic delegation and would complete the process by the end of May.

In Canada, racing runner Evan Dunfee worries that if athletes were given priority, it would “embitter public opinion and turn the community against us.”

“I think we would come home from those Games and we would be really limited in our ability to use the power of sport to cheer people up, inspire and be role models,” said Dunfee, who finished fourth in the 50km event at the Rio 2016 Olympic Games.

Dunfee doesn’t expect his turn to get vaccinated before June or July, a time when he would normally be training at altitude in St. Moritz, Switzerland, in the run-up to the Games.

He said that if his training went according to plan, it was very likely that he would not be vaccinated before the Olympics.

“Our value as athletes is only as strong as our community,” he said. “We are nothing without our communities.”

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