Making an Olympic team is hard enough. This winter, those who earn their spots on the U.S. squad might find it takes even more work to get to Beijing.
Among the slow trickle of information coming out of China in advance of February’s Olympics was news that, with virtually no flights operating between North America and China, Olympians very well might have to get to Beijing through a still-undetermined set of connecting flights that could more than double their travel time.
As things stand this month, most of the 250 or so athletes who make the U.S. team will need to take a charter that connects them to Beijing-bound flights scheduled out of four cities, none of which are in North America.
The uncertainty has turned what is already a logistical challenge — getting all these Olympians and their thousands of pounds of equipment to China — into something even more complex. And it has turned what is already an event beset with unprecedented challenges — less freedom of movement, a vaccine mandate and the prospect of competing in a country that is poised to restrict negative coverage, including over widely documented human-rights abuses — into something even more difficult.
