Olympic-bound Canadian wrestler Lappage unfazed by Zika virus worries

For Danielle Lappage, this summer’s Olympic Games will be the culmination of a lifelong dream. The Zika virus? It's not really on the Vancouver wrestler's radar.

“It wasn’t something I was super concerned or scared about - I don't really know why, but that's how it was,” Lappage said on Tuesday, barely an hour after she returned to her parents' home in Calgary from the weekend’s Rio de Janeiro wrestling test event at the new Carioca Arena, where she won her 63-kilogram weight class.

“I heard more about it from people here, from friends and family, to be careful. It didn’t seem like that scary an issue. They were giving out bug spray at the venue. We put that on a lot, and we tried not to sleep with our windows open.

"That was really about it."

The test events will pick up pace over these final six months before the Aug. 5 opening of the Games. On Tuesday, a day after the World Health Organization deemed the virus a “public health emergency of international concern,” the Rio organizing committee moved to ease concerns, the chief medical officer terming the virus a "minimal risk" during the Brazilian winter.

The next test event is the FINA World Cup of diving, schedule for Feb. 19-24 at the Maria Lenk Aquatic Centre, site of the Olympics’ diving and synchro swimming competition. Diving Canada COO Penny Joyce said in an e-mail that the travelling Canadian party of athletes and officials will follow the advice of the IOC and COC, based on the WHO recommendations that include an advisory against travel to Zika-infected areas by pregnant women. Though the virus is in most cases harmless, its most alarming link is to an outbreak of microcephaly in newborns in Brazil.

“We will not have any pregnant women travelling with us for the event,” Joyce added in her e-mail.

For many of the Canadian athletes on their way to Rio for this summer’s Olympics, health warnings and pre-travel innoculations against dengue fever and malaria, for instance, are something they’ve grown used to when travelling to South America.

For Lappage, coming back from knee surgery in December 2014 and having qualified for an Olympic spot a year later, the goal is right in front of her. This test event, and the gold medal result, was just what her confidence needed ahead of her Games debut at age 25. All five Canadian wrestlers hit the podium, and the group also visited the Canadian performance centre and at least had a look at the unfinished athletes' village.

“It’s great motivation and inspiration for August,” she said. “I have no complaints. It was an awesome experience.”