Sawt Falasteen - Unvaccinated snowboarder stays positive in Beijing quarantine

The 2014 Olympic parallel giant slalom champion and 2012, 2013 and 2014 World Cup winner in parallel is completing three weeks of quarantine in the Chinese capital and will be able to resume training on the slopes only five days before her event.

"My big advantage is that I won't suffer from jet lag," she told a video conference.

The 34-year-old is, for the moment, the only athlete qualified for the Games who is known to be serving the three-week quarantine.

Kummer knew that her path to the parallel giant slalom at the Olympic Games, scheduled for February 8, would be steeper and more complicated than that of her rivals.

Last spring, she decided not to be vaccinated.

"For personal reasons," she said. "I am not against vaccination, but there are several reasons that I keep to myself. I do not have to justify myself."

That meant she has to submit to the quarantine required by the Chinese authorities before she can enter the "Olympic bubble".

She is restricted to her hotel room in the northern suburbs of Beijing.

Kummer says she is comfortable in her room of about 25 square metres where she has installed an exercise bike.

"The room is clean. I love Chinese food. It's tip-top," she said.

It seems to be a far cry from the detention centre in Melbourne, where another unvaccinated athlete, Novak Djokovic, the world's number one tennis player, was held during his unsuccessful attempt to avoid deportation from Australia.

Did she follow the Djokovic case?

"Superficially", she says brushing the question aside.

- 'Positive person' -

Kummer insists she is not downhearted.

"I'm an extraordinarily positive person, I don't have time for negative thoughts, I don't even think about what impact my quarantine might have on my performance," she said.

Her daily quarantine life is monotonous but busy.

"In the morning, I do very intense training sessions," Kummer said.

"After lunch, my program is balance and coordination exercises, yoga, meditation. After dinner, I work on my studies, on my projects, because I am renovating a house".

For Kummer, her vaccine decision made even qualifying for Beijing more complicated.

She was barred from the last two World Cup events at Carezza and Cortina d'Ampezzo in Italy at the end of December. She remains unhappy about the decision to exclude her from the Cortina races.

"The night before, I was told that I could not participate, it was really hard to bear, even though I had done several negative PCR tests," she said.

That dropped her to 25th in the World Cup standings.

She arrived in Beijing on January 13 unsure she would even be selected for the Games. On Tuesday, the Swiss Ski Federation announced their team and it included Kummer.

Kummer refuses to see herself as a symbol, or spokesperson, for non-vaccination.

"I do not find my situation difficult, or even worthy of interest. Everyone makes their own choices," she said.

"My situation could be more difficult, I could be injured," she added. "I believe in myself, I have the same chances to win as the other participants."

F.AbuZaid--SF-PST