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Be wary of the salad dressing bottle.
That’s among the advice given to the Canadian women’s hockey team to avoid the norovirus that has made news in their sport early in Milano Cortina 2026.
Canada’s opening game Thursday against Finland was postponed to Feb. 12 because of a norovirus outbreak among the Finns.
One Swiss player also isolated with the stomach virus, but Canada’s game Saturday night against Switzerland was expected to be played.
“The biggest thing was just being super-diligent in the common spaces in the village,” said Canadian women’s team forward Blayre Turnbull on Saturday afternoon.
“In the dining hall specifically, there’s some items that are shared with all in the nations. Normally, you take your tray and the staff there serve your food, but there’s condiments like salad dressings and stuff like that that are communal.
Gina Kingsbury, general manager of Canada’s women’s Olympic hockey team, said Thursday that her team was asked if they were willing to postpone their first game after the Finnish team was hit with a norovirus outbreak. ‘Forfeiting was never brought up,’ she said of a conversation with officials, adding that delaying was in the spirit of the Games.
“We’ve been washing our hands with soap and water like mad. More handwashing than I’ve ever done in my life for sure.
“People can wear masks if they choose to, medical gloves to touch the dressing bottles and whatnot. Otherwise, we’re just trying to stick with our group and making sure that we’re keeping our distance from other teams.”
The 2022 Winter Games in Beijing were held in a “closed loop” because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Masking, constant testing and limited interaction was part of the athlete experience.
While there are no such restrictions in the Milano-Cortina Games, the spectre of illness throwing a wrench into an athlete’s plans still exists when thousands of people congregate in one place.
“There’s thousands of athletes, staff, volunteers that are being brought into one space and sharing many common areas,” said Canadian forward Jenn Gardiner.
“Even when we first got here, our team prepped us and warned us that things like this could happen just with the amount of travel that people had to do.”
Canada’s short-track speedskaters were also on their guard about a stomach bug that could derail what is predicted to be a medal haul in that sport.
“It’s more in public spaces, to keep our masks on, in the shuttles or transit,” Kim Boutin said.
“It was planned like that at first, but I think we have to be more vigilant now.”