Top athletes now in front line of Covid-19 battle

NEW YORK • Four-time Olympic gold medallist Hayley Wickenheiser of Canada was around 10 years old when she first had the idea of being both a professional hockey player and a doctor.

Wickenheiser, 41, grew up in Shaunavon, Saskatchewan, a town of fewer than 2,000 people. A young girl in the area had been severely injured after getting hit by a grocery delivery van.

"I remember going to the hospital with all the kids in the neighbourhood and just being really inspired and intrigued by the doctors and nurses that were taking care of her," she said. "That's how it all started. At that age, I had two goals: to play for the Edmonton Oilers and to go to Harvard Medical School."

After retiring in 2017 as Team Canada's career scoring leader, Wickenheiser enrolled in medical school at the University of Calgary, then took on the role as an assistant director of player development for the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2018.

She was in her clinical rotation in emergency rooms around Toronto two weeks ago, when medical students and trainees were pulled from their assignments as the number of coronavirus cases in the country reached a critical point.

As of yesterday, there were more than 1.7 million coronavirus cases globally and over 100,000 virus-related deaths. There were over 22,000 cases in Canada, and more than 500 deaths.

Medical students are not allowed to directly treat patients who have contracted Covid-19, so Wickenheiser has been gathering personal protective equipment for front-line workers and helping with the contact tracing of diagnosed patients.

Last month, Wickenheiser, a member of the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) Athletes' Commission, was stunned to read that the IOC still was planning for the Tokyo Olympics to continue as scheduled in July.

"I kept on seeing this blatant, 'We are going ahead no matter what,' kind of attitude, and I just thought, 'How can you be speaking?' " she said. "It was making me crazy."

She voiced her concerns to Canadian and international Olympic leaders before publishing a statement to her social media accounts on March 17, imploring the IOC to make a decision about postponing or cancelling the Games.

Five days later, the Canadian Olympic Committee announced it would not send the country's athletes to Tokyo this year and called on the IOC to postpone the Games, a decision the IOC made with the Japanese government on March 24.

Wickenheiser has since been in contact with the office of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to help promote social distancing advisories to the public and has contributed to his #plankthecurve social media campaign.

She is not the only elite athlete now on the front lines fighting the spread of the coronavirus. Kansas City Chiefs offensive lineman Laurent Duvernay-Tardif, the National Football League's (NFL) only active player with a medical degree, said he had only a basic understanding of the virus when he was asked about it during media interviews before Super Bowl.

After he returned from his post-Super Bowl sailing vacation, he reached out to Quebec government officials asking how he could help.

Like Wickenheiser, Duvernay-Tardif has been using his social media platforms to communicate vetted health care guidance to his followers, totalling nearly 200,000 between Instagram and Twitter.

Myron Rolle was drafted by the Tennessee Titans in 2010 and spent three seasons in the NFL before retiring to pursue a career in medicine. He is a neurosurgery resident at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital, where he treats patients, including those showing signs of Covid-19.

Regardless of their specialities, all three athletes drew parallels between competing in professional sports and working in health care. They said skills like time management, managing intense pressure and perseverance were transferable between vocations.

"Football's taught me discipline, focus, hard work, dedication, teamwork, preparation and overcoming adversity," Rolle said.

NYTIMES