Park City’s Casey Dawson finally heads to Beijing

Park City local and U.S. Speedskater Casey Dawson. Photo: U.S. Speedskating.

BEIJING — After testing positive for COVID-19 roughly three weeks ago, Park City local and 21 year old U.S. speedskater Casey Dawson’s Olympic dreams are finally back on track. Upon testing negative four times in a row, the University of Utah student is currently en route to Beijing to compete.

Due to an inability to produce four negative tests after his initial positive test a few weeks back, Dawson missed both the opening ceremonies and the 5,000 meter event as he watched stateside. However, completely determined to do whatever it took to make it to Beijing, Dawson finally passed a fourth negative test on Saturday night and immediately booked a flight to Atlanta on Sunday morning.

Upon arriving in Atlanta, Dawson then boarded a red-eye to Paris and eventually a red-eye to Beijing to complete the nearly 12,000 mile journey.

According to NBC correspondent Gadi Schwartz, if all goes according to plan, Dawson should land in Beijing just a few hours before the men’s 1500m event which is scheduled to take place on Tuesday, Feb. 8 at 5:30 a.m. ET.

This may be one of the GREATEST all out, last minute, globe crossing, sprints ever made to the #OlympicGames @USSpeedskating’s #CaseyDawson is about to fly SLC>ATL>Paris>Beijing in less than 2 days… landing just hours away from competing! #GetCasey2Beijing @TeamUSA pic.twitter.com/WJqCBhvmEe

— Gadi Schwartz (@GadiNBC) February 6, 2022

Update! @TeamUSA’s Casey Dawson just landed in ATL, now waiting for his next flight to France. 1500 miles down. Around 10,000 miles to go! If all goes according to plan, he’ll land hours before the mens 1500m. This is gonna be close! #getcasey2beijing #WinterOlympics @NBCOlympics pic.twitter.com/A8mxZlcQs9

— Gadi Schwartz (@GadiNBC) February 6, 2022

Casey’s 1st long leg to Beijing now underway with some longer leg room too! #getcasey2beijing @realcaseydawson @USSpeedskating #WinterOlympics #teamusa pic.twitter.com/7Dhluh3Kej

— Gadi Schwartz (@GadiNBC) February 6, 2022