🎙️ Voice is AI-generated. Inconsistencies may occur.
One of the two athletes chosen to carry the flag for Team USA at the opening ceremony of the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing has tested positive for COVID and will not be able to take part in the Opening Ceremonies.
Four-time Olympic bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor and five-time Olympic curler John Shuster were picked by their U.S. teammates to be the flag bearers at Friday's ceremony, but Meyers Taylor will no longer be able to participate after testing positive for COVID on Sunday.
Instead, three-time Olympic speed skater Brittany Bowe, who was the first runner-up in the flag bearer election, will walk on behalf of Meyers Taylor and join Shuster in leading the team into National Stadium.
The asymptomatic 37-year-old will remain in isolation in Beijing in a hotel designated for asymptomatic people who have tested positive in hopes of still getting the chance to compete in her events and win her first gold medal at an Olympic Games. She won silver in the 2014 and 2018 games and bronze in the 2010 games.
Because bobsled events won't begin until February 13, Meyers Taylor will still have time to complete her required quarantine, although she will need two negative tests before she's allowed to compete.
"Being voted by my peers as the flag bearer is the biggest honor of my career," Meyers Taylor said in a Wednesday press release. "While I cannot carry the flag and walk in with the rest of Team USA, Brittany is very deserving of the opportunity to lead our delegation on my behalf. She is an incredible person with an exemplary character, and I'm excited to watch her and John lead Team USA at the Opening Ceremony."
"I'm honored to be a part of this team, and coming from a military family, it's really special to have been chosen to carry our flag," she added.
Meyers Taylor is the first bobsledder to be voted flag bearer since the 1956 Melbourne Olympics when four-time Olympian Jim Bickford Jr. was chosen.
Meyers Taylor traveled to Beijing with her nearly 2-year-old son and husband, Nic Taylor, who is an alternate bobsledder for Team USA. Taylor also tested positive upon arriving in Beijing.
"Getting to the Olympics is never easy, and this time, as a new mom, it has been the most challenging, but also, incredibly rewarding, to be able to show that it can still be done," she wrote on Instagram.
"It's been an incredible wave of positivity that I've been riding to a while so I'm going to continue to do that," she added. "This is just the latest obstacle that my family and I have faced on this journey, so I'm remaining optimistic that I'll be able to recover quickly and still have the opportunity to compete."
On Wednesday, Bowe said she is "extremely grateful" for the opportunity to walk on behalf of Meyers Taylor and called carrying the flag for the team "the honor of a lifetime."
Bowe, who won bronze at the Pyeongchang Olympics in 2018, was widely praised earlier this month after she gave up her spot in the 500 meters for Erin Jackson, who is ranked No. 1 in the world for that distance.
During the final day of the speed skating trials in Milwaukee, Jackson slipped in the race and was knocked to third. To get her teammate to Beijing, Bowe relinquished her spot to Jackson. She will still compete in the 1,000 and 1,200-meter races.
"In my heart there was never a question that I would do whatever it took, if it came down to me, to get Erin to skate the Olympics," Bowe told NBC on January 9. "No one is more deserving than her."
The other flag bearer, gold medallist Shuster—one of four five-time Olympians on this year's U.S. team—will be the first curler to carry the American flag at an opening ceremony.
"Being elected as one of the flag bearers is a tremendous honor," Shuster said. "When thinking back to my Opening Ceremony experiences, I cannot help but be so proud to lead Team USA into an Olympic Winter Games. Joining the incredible group of Team USA leaders, especially since it was chosen by my Team USA teammates, is one of the greatest honors of my sporting career."
More than 150 athletes on the 2022 U.S. Olympic Team are set to walk in Friday's opening ceremony.
About the writer
Katherine Fung is a Newsweek senior reporter based in New York City. She has covered U.S. politics and culture extensively. ... Read more