Hospital Nurses on the Front Lines of the Pandemic Seek First Place in Beijing

U.S. vice skip Nina Roth and Great Britain vice skip Vicky Wright are going for gold in women's curling at the Olympics after two years of helping patients at home battle COVID-19.

BEIJING — Two heroes took the ice on Sheet C at the National Aquatics Centre here Saturday night, wearing jerseys instead of their usual scrubs, carrying brooms instead of stethoscopes. For the next two-plus hours they pushed, swept, called, competed alongside their curling teammates—thousands of miles away from their other respective teams cheering them on.

It is a known reality of these Winter Olympics that many athletes maintain other jobs outside of their sports. Such are the financial demands of chasing a dream overseen by an international sports organization that still clings to the myth of amateurism and pockets the bulk of the profits. Over the past two years, for United States vice skip Nina Roth and Great Britain vice skip Vicky Wright, this has meant doubling as hospital nurses on the front lines of a pandemic that has killed more than 5.8 million people and upended the lives of billions more.

“It all feels like a blur now, but you just get your head down and go on,” Wright says. “You have good days, you have bad days, just like in sport. And same as having great teammates on the ice, the support’s there, you work together, and you come out with a solution.”

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Now 28, Wright first discovered curling on a primary school field trip, although initially “it was just another sport for me to try” alongside swimming, trampolining and golf. She also dreamt about one day entering the veterinary field, until she discovered “I didn’t like animals at all. From there, I still really enjoyed the medical side of things and fancied becoming a doctor, but I love constantly being around people. So I was like, ‘Nursing is the thing for me.’”

The 33-year-old Roth “fell in love” with the sport from an early age. By fifth grade, she was doodling curling stones and Olympic rings in her class notebooks; after eighth grade, as part of a graduation tradition, she painted similar images on a spot on a wall at her middle school. Growing up a quick walk from the Madison (Wisc.) Curling Club, she got to know world-class athletes who taught her the game’s intricacies, from basic delivery mechanics to on-ice communication. “They were very willing to take me under their wing,” Roth recalls.

Nursing came later, toward the end of her time at Edgewood College, and for similar reasons as Wright. “I love being able to help people,” Roth says. Today she is going on a decade of employment at Select Specialty Hospital—Madison, a critical illness recovery center whose patients arrive from acute care settings, like ICUs, and often stay a month or more. “My work’s been very flexible with my curling dreams,” Roth says, “so it was a very good fit.” Wright has similarly spent the past six years juggling her duties as a surgical nurse in ward B11 at Forth Valley Royal Hospital in Scotland with her responsibilities on the ice, scaling back to one day a week in 2019 to fit in more training before eventually returning full-time amid the pandemic.

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At each workplace, Roth and Wright have made efforts to pass on their passions. Following the 2018 Games in PyeongChang, where Roth and the U.S. women finished eighth, she held an event for colleagues and their families to teach them about curling. “Once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, some described it, to learn a sport from an Olympic athlete,” says Monica Gunderson, CEO of Select Specialty Hospital—Madison. Now they not only can tell a hog line from a central line, not to mention a burned stone from a kidney stone, but some even were inspired to join local leagues. “It’s common to hear in our hospital, ‘How did curling go last night?’” Gunderson says.

Patients, too, have picked up on the craze. “I don’t normally talk about being an Olympian with my patients, but my colleagues like to pop in and tell them, ‘Do you know your nurse today is an Olympian?’” Roth says. Other times the patients will catch a glimpse of the Olympic Rings tattooed on Roth’s wrist and pelt her with questions about PyeongChang. “My favorite story to tell is about the opening ceremonies, and what it’s like to walk out as the greater Team USA. I think they played ‘Gangnam Style’ as we were coming out. That was great to dance to that.”

Courtesy of Select Medical

In this regard, curling provides a nice distraction from the reason they have come there in the first place—and since the pandemic hit, there has been a lot to distract from. Wright was about to start competing at the world championships in Canada in March 2020, and before she knew it she was flying back home, scrubbing up and getting pulled every which way to help out. “Just a roller-coaster in the healthcare field,” Roth adds. “As a critical illness recovery hospital, we’re taking patients who are recovering from COVID. That means weening them off the ventilator, or helping all of their other systems, whether it’s their kidney function or cardiac or lungs. It can be very uplifting to work with those patients, and it can be extremely difficult and sad.”

Training proved difficult due to quarantine lockdowns and social distancing restrictions. Roth, for instance, built a gym in her basement and began driving to another area curling club to practice with U.S. siblings Becca and Matt Hamilton, masking up and hitting the ice only when no one else was around. But both Roth and Wright report receiving nothing but full-throated support from their fellow nurses. Roth recently received a video of staffers standing in a hospital hallway, waving banners bearing good-luck messages, and shouting, “Go for gold!”

Courtesy of Select Medical

On Wright’s last shift before heading to Beijing, meanwhile, she was given a “delicious” Victorian sponge cake decorated with the British flag, a curling stone and a broom in icing. “They’re loving it,” Wright says. “They’re all so excited. On all the patients’ TVs, they have no choice but to watch curling. Long days for people in the ward. Hopefully they’ll have fun.”

But the expectations are also high. Wright reports receiving good-natured instructions to wear any potential medal around the ward upon her return, while Gunderson says that planning is already underway for a welcome-home party in Roth’s honor featuring golden decorations. Whether those will come to fruition, however, remains to be seen: As of Tuesday morning, Roth and the U.S. locked in a three-way tie for second in the round-robin standings, with Great Britain sitting in another three-way tie for fifth. (Only the top four advance to the bracket round.)

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Aside from a postgame fist bump after Great Britain’s 10-5 win over the U.S. last weekend, Roth and Wright haven’t gotten much chance to interact and swap nursing experiences. They have been too busy competing and soaking up the Olympic experience, whether competing, training attending other events, or, in Roth’s case, buying “way too many” souvenirs for her 2-year-old son Nolan. Still there is an implicit bond there, if only thanks to what they have endured over the past 24 months. “I send all the nurses I know positive vibes,” Roth says.

After all, in a sense, they’re part of the same team.

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