Knocked Down by Covid in Beijing, Vincent Zhou Is Getting Back Up

After a lifetime of coaching for the Olympics and making it there as a determine skater twice, Vincent Zhou now has moments when it’s too painful for him to consider the Winter Video games, or to even go close to his skates.

Zhou expects to compete on the earth championships in France subsequent week. However after what occurred to him ultimately month’s Beijing Olympics, he’s enduring what he calls “some of the difficult occasions of my complete life.”

He’s grieving his 2022 Olympic second that by no means was.

The morning after serving to america win a silver medal within the determine skating staff occasion, Zhou examined constructive for the coronavirus and needed to withdraw from the lads’s particular person occasion scheduled to start the subsequent day.

Caught in a small lodge room for every week whereas he recovered from cold-like signs, he adopted the occasion on the web, too crushed to observe on TV. Afterward, he stated he was certain he might have gained a minimum of the bronze medal.

Zhou, 21, was launched from isolation in time to carry out within the determine skating gala, an occasion purely held as fan leisure. However that night time, when Zhou tried to board a bus to the closing ceremony together with his teammates, safety officers stopped him, insisting that he had not cleared Covid protocols.

In a name with reporters on Tuesday, Zhou stated he stood at that safety checkpoint for what felt like an hour arguing his case. In any case, he was now not contagious, had examined adverse 14 occasions in a row and had possibly a day or two left in his official post-isolation interval of avoiding crowds and what was referred to as “nonessential actions,” he stated. Might the guards see his aspect and have some mercy? Might they not permit him this final potential second of pleasure at a devastating Olympics that had gone so mistaken for him?

His pleading went nowhere.

“He couldn’t even have that tiny token of closure,” Drew Meekins, one in all his coaches, stated.

Now Zhou is again coaching in Colorado Springs, the place a post-Olympic fog has kicked in. Many Olympians say this era after the Video games is especially tough as a result of they go from an adrenaline excessive to an excessive low, the place they’re devoid of bodily and emotional power. This sense even has a reputation: the Olympic hangover.

In Zhou’s case, the hangover has been so severe that at occasions he has referred to as his coaches from his mattress, crying, Meekins stated, as a result of he couldn’t bear to go to the rink. He questions whether or not his life’s work was price it and asks, “Why me?”

It’s a good query. He double masked. He wore a face protect on flights. In China, he ate alone within the Olympic cafeteria, fastidiously knocking down his masks between bites. He usually stored such a distance from others throughout the pandemic that he grew to become excruciatingly lonely, he stated final month.

And but, he examined constructive.

“I’m having a tough time holding myself collectively proper now speaking about it,” Zhou, who’s from Palo Alto, Calif., stated to reporters on Tuesday. “I’m nonetheless presently in the course of issues. I’m undoubtedly not out of it but.”

To win again management of his profession after Covid had rendered him helpless over it, Zhou dove proper again into coaching after getting back from China. The transition, although, from the trauma of the Video games to coaching for the world championships has been rocky. As Meekins has identified, grief is available in waves.

Generally, Meekins stated, he can see the load of unhappiness Zhou is carrying with him when Zhou walks into the rink. His head is down. His shoulders droop.

“You may simply inform that his thoughts is so busy,” Meekins stated. “I might inform it’s occupied nonetheless attempting to course of what occurred.”

Meekins and Tom Zakrajsek, Zhou’s different fundamental coach, maintain an in depth eye on Zhou to ensure he feels supported. They’ve performed a variety of listening. They’ve given him a number of area.

Additionally, a sports activities psychologist from america Olympic coaching middle usually comes to observe Zhou’s practices. The 2 have spoken quite a bit previously a number of weeks as Zhou works by way of these waves of robust feelings.

It’s necessary for him to go to worlds, his coaches stated. Zhou might lastly discover that closure. It additionally would possibly remind him of what skating was like earlier than Beijing. It had by no means been higher. In some ways, he had by no means beloved it extra.

Within the fall, he beat the three-time world champion Nathan Chen, handing him his first loss in additional than three years. He additionally certified for his first Grand Prix last, the place the highest of the highest skaters go face to face each season.

“My feeling is that Vincent competing on the world championships, regardless of how he finishes, goes to be a present of how brave he’s and the way he’s a shining instance of somebody who got here again from excessive adversity,” Zakrajsek stated.

Zhou has had the identical feeling. He has generally thought it could be straightforward to only skip worlds and stroll away from the ache and unhealthy recollections. His research at Brown College await him. After which he thinks, “I ought to possibly simply attempt to overlook about every part, simply get on the ice, simply go for it. Take the shot. Who is aware of? Possibly it can end up properly.”

Preserving the frustration out of his thoughts, nonetheless, has been a wrestle, he stated: “I step onto the ice and I’m immediately reminded of every part that occurred.”

Nonetheless, he instructed reporters — and sure himself — that “in all probability 90, I don’t know, 95 p.c of different folks would have already given up.” And he’s not a kind of folks.

He stated simply having the ability to take that first step and go to worlds would make him actually proud. He’s attempting to will it to occur: Get on that aircraft. Placed on that costume. Step out on that ice. Deep down, he stated, the motivation to try this nonetheless drives him.

“Life actually desires to get me down proper now,” he stated. “However I’m not able to go down and not using a combat.”