Kristina Knott has gotten past a minor hump in her journey to the Tokyo Olympics.
After testing positive for COVID-19 last Tuesday in Sweden, the 25-year-old Knott is now free of the virus as she has left isolation after five days from her hotel room in Karlstad. She is now back home in Orlando, Florida.
Knott is preparing for the Olympics again, working out at the gym and doing sprints with her coach Rohsaan Griffin.
“Yes, it’s just a minor bump in the road for sure,” said Knott in a television interview.
Last week, Knott was grounded in Sweden with her coach and another Filipino-American Olympic aspirant in Eric Cray when organizers of the Karlstad Grand Prix athletics meet informed of her asymptomatic condition and pulled her out of her competitions in the women’s 100-meter and 200-meter events.
It was while she was in isolation that Knott found out that she was among four tracksters in the women’s 200-meter dash who made it to the quadrennial meet via the universality places ruling.
“This preparation is different from any other championship because I really have to focus on the 200-meters,” said Knott.
Knott’s Olympic ranking rose from 62 to 39th place when she competed in two topnotch international meets in Italy last month.
While in isolation, Knott said she still found to stay in shape and do workouts.
“I still worked out. Normally, when I compete, I had more days to rest,” added Knott.
Under the universality rule, member countries in athletics may enter one male athlete and one female athlete, regardless of time, if they have no athletes of that gender meeting the entry standard.
Knott was among four who were given a universality placing next to Singapore’s Veronica Shanti Pereira, South Sudan’s Lucia Moris and Guðbjörg Jóna Bjarnadóttir of Iceland.