BEIJING: Russian and Canadian girls ice hockey players wore medical masks Monday for his or her Beijing Winter Video games match after COVID outcomes didn’t arrive in time, in a weird pandemic-inspired chapter to the Video games.

Canada ran out 6-1 winners, however solely after a delay of 1 hour when the Russians discovered they’d no opponents to play.

“We were just waiting for (Russia’s PCR) results to come back and once they came back we were comfortable,” stated Natalie Spooner.

“Our coaches and medical staff were not going to put us in a situation where we would not feel safe.

“That is most likely a cool story in the long term. We will say we had been on the COVID Olympics and we even wore a masks in a recreation.”

The Olympics in the Chinese capital are taking place in a COVID-secure “closed loop” bubble where everyone must wear a mask at all times — except, usually, when they are competing.

Everyone in the bubble must also have a COVID test each day.

“Pursuant to discussions between the 2 groups, they each agreed that the match would begin with either side sporting masks,” the International Olympic Committee said in a statement to AFP.

The Russian players took their masks off in the third period.

“The outcomes got here in they usually had been detrimental they usually stated they had been going to take their masks off,” said Spooner.

“We figured we had them (the masks) on for 2 intervals so why not maintain being additional protected for one interval.”

The Russian players said they had done nothing wrong and that they had their daily COVID test at their normal time of 8:00am.

“It’s out of our management. The Chinese language on the laboratory, they weren’t prepared to offer our PCR check outcomes,” said Anna Shibanova, adding that all the Russian players tested negative for COVID.

Her team-mate Daria Gredzen said that “we did every little thing proper”.

“We had been making ready for the sport as ordinary. We got here out, did the warm-up and had been about to go on the ice,” she said.

“And after we already got here out on the ice, we discovered that the opposite workforce was not there.”

Shibanova said she hoped she’d never have to play in a mask again.

“It isn’t a pleasant feeling,” she said. “There’s not sufficient air.”

There have been 387 optimistic instances since January 23 within the bubble, in response to official figures, amongst them an unknown variety of players.