Olympic hockey coach admits using fake COVID vaccine card at Beijing Games

An Olympic hockey coach admitted to using a fake vaccination card to coach his team in the Beijing Olympics four years ago.

Swiss ice hockey coach Patrick Fischer has admitted he used a certificate falsely claiming he’d been vaccinated against COVID-19 to get around China’s strict travel restrictions.

Swiss public broadcaster SRF said it confronted Fischer with documents showing he was fined nearly 39,000 Swiss francs ($50,000) by local authorities in 2023 for document forgery after buying the certificate on social media. SRF said he went public with his admission shortly after.

In a statement late Monday, Fischer said he made a “serious mistake in this matter” by traveling to Beijing with the Switzerland men’s team using false paperwork.

“I’m very sorry if I’ve disappointed people with this situation,” Fischer said. “I was in an extraordinary personal crisis because I didn’t want to be vaccinated. At the same time I certainly didn’t want to let my team down at the Olympic Games.”

Fischer is one of Switzerland’s most successful hockey coaches ever. He’s been in the post since 2015 and took the team to three Olympics as well as winning three silver medals at the world championship.

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The team was eliminated in the quarterfinal round.

Ahead of the 2022 Olympics, China had some of the strictest COVID-19 rules in the world. It insisted any athletes heading to the Games had to either be vaccinated against COVID-19 or sit out a three-week quarantine in a hotel, as Swiss snowboarder Patrizia Kummer did.

Switzerland hosts the world championship next month. Fischer was already due to step down after that, and the Swiss Ice Hockey Federation said it considers the matter closed.

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Fischer played for the Swiss national team in the 2002 and 2006 Olympics and also played for the country’s 1994 World Juniors team. He spent most of his career playing for EV Zug of Switzerland’s National League A, where his jersey number is retired.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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