There’s only a week left until the Tokyo Olympics finally open, and Taiwan’s athletes are continuing to train down to the last second so that they’ll be in peak shape when their time to perform comes.
One Olympic rower has even applied for and received an exemption to a COVID-19 prevention rule barring people from taking to Taiwan’s rivers. The hope is that these last few days of training before the games open will make a difference.
It’s early in the morning, but rower Huang Yi-ting is already out on Yilan County’s Dongshan River. Technically, she shouldn’t be here: rules put in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19 have closed Taiwan’s waterways to recreation.
But Huang Yi-ting isn’t just any watersports aficionado: she is a world-class athlete, and in a few short days, she’ll be in Tokyo, the only rower representing Taiwan in this year’s Olympics.
With just a week until the games open, she now needs every spare minute remaining to get herself into perfect form. She has no time for COVID rules, and in any case, she’s competing in a solo event, so there’s no one training with her to get COVID from or spread it to.
So, with no risk of COVID transmission, and Taiwan’s medal count on the line, she’s gotten the Yilan County Government to agree to a special exemption to the ban on public rowing.
The county’s head, Lin Zi-miao is clearly proud to have an athlete of this caliber training in her county. She even took to Facebook to explain the situation, ask residents not to report her or disturb her, and to cheer her on