Keegan Messing passing COVID-19 tests, but still not on a plane for Olympics just yet

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You won’t find a more positive thinker than Keegan Messing on Canada’s Olympic figure skating team

BEIJING — You won’t find a more positive thinker than Keegan Messing on Canada’s Olympic figure skating team.

That said, you won’t find him on this team at all, because he isn’t here yet. However, there is hope and optimism in fact that the upbeat 30-year-old will be able to produce the final pair of negative COVID-19 tests required in time to get his keester on a commercial flight bound for either Tokyo or Singapore, with a connection to the Games. There are too many regulations to clear to allow for a charter flight, so he’s going commercial if he’s going at all.

Messing has already tested negative twice, after first testing positive 96 hours prior to departure on the Canadian Olympic Committee charter flight from Vancouver to Beijing. He’s been in Vancouver since Jan. 25.

Best-case scenario is he produces two more negative tests, gets airborne on Saturday and will compete in the men’s short program at the Capital Indoor Stadium on Tuesday. If time runs out on this recovery program, Skate Canada has alternate Wesley Chiu waiting in the wings. But make no mistake, Messing is priority one.

“Everyone is doing everything they can to get him here and we can’t thank everyone enough,” said Skate Canada high performance director Mike Slipchuk, whose gratitude goes out to Canadian Sport Institute Pacific officials for facilitating the constant COVID testing, the British Columbia section of Skate Canada for arranging training ice so Messing doesn’t get rusty, and the Fairmont Vancouver Airport Hotel for providing security and a workout space.

“He’s showing no symptoms. It’s just a matter of clearing those steps and the biggest challenge once those steps are done is trying to get on a plane to get here. It’s not easy to get here.”

Slipchuk said Messing has remained upbeat through the ordeal, has worked out every day and has been sending him training videos for private practice sessions on rented ice.

Pairs skater and team veteran Kirsten Moore-Towers has been in contact with Messing every day.

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“Just recently he sent me a video of his son Wyatt standing up, so he’s in good spirits. I think the best person to deal with this kind of crisis is Keegan Messing. We know he’s training hard now that he’s out of quarantine. We miss him.”

Messing is not the only athlete whose Games have been jeopardized by COVID, just the only Canadian, so his plight hits home.

“This is part of it, and we knock on wood,” said Slipchuk. “We had a season of what, 30-plus events where we didn’t have a thing. You don’t know how you get it, you don’t know where you contract it and he’s one of our most tested athletes because he’s always crossing the border all year. It is what it is. They’ve handled it well. … To date he’s almost got all the tests we need so we’re optimistic that by tomorrow we’ll have some good news on where we’re at. We hope to have him here in the next few days. He doesn’t really need practice. As long as he arrives, he’ll be pumped up.”

dbarnes@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/sportsdanbarnes