With this event scheduled from February 4 to 20, the Chinese capital will be the first city to host the Winter Games after the Summer Games in 2008, more prestigious and considered at the time as the celebration of a country rising in Powerful.
This time around, Beijing is especially keen to rule out risks and controversies.
Pursuing a strategy of total eradication of COVID-19 in the country, China will put in place a sanitary bubble
for the 3000 or so athletes and people mobilized for the organization of the competitions.
Despite a promise of games green, inclusive, open and clean
, which environmental activists doubt, Beijing remains under the threat of a pollution fog, especially in winter.
As for the controversies surrounding the 2022 Olympics, Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned: The political manipulation of a few Western politicians will not hurt the enthusiasm of the Olympics, but will only expose their own nullity.
.
Organizations have long called for a full boycott of the Olympics in protest against China’s human rights record, particularly pointing to the treatment of Uighurs in the Xinjiang region.
In December, the Biden administration announced it would not send no official representation at the Games because the ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human rights violations
.
Beijing has warned that the United Stateswill pay the price“,” text “:” will pay the price “}}”>will pay the price of this affront, but that did not prevent Australia, the United Kingdom and Canada to join the diplomatic boycott, even if the athletes of these countries will participate well in the competitions.
Another hot issue: the Peng Shuai affair.
Tennis player, doubles specialist, disappeared for nearly three weeks after accusing ex-vice prime minister Zhang Gaoli, 40 years her senior, of sexual intercourse strength
during a relationship that lasted several years.
Videos showing her since in public in China have not been enough to dispel doubts about her safety and her freedoms of movement and expression.
The COVID-19
These Olympics will also be the second, after those in Tokyo last summer, to be contested under the threat of COVID-19.
China, where the coronavirus appeared at the end of 2019, has established a so-called zero COVID
aimed at suppressing any spread of the virus through severe border restrictions, long quarantines and targeted lockdowns. The 13 million inhabitants of Xi’an must therefore stay at home for nearly two weeks.
Omicron should not be at the origin of this last outbreak, relatively small compared to other countries, but this highly contagious variant constitutes a new challenge for the organizers of the Olympic Games.
First consequence of Omicron: hockey players from the North American Championship, the NHL, will not be able to participate in the Games.
We are worried
, conceded David Shoemaker, Secretary General of the Canadian Olympic Committee.
We are confident that these Games can still run safely, but we are taking it day by day.
, he explained to local media.
The organizers have established a draconian protocol: all athletes must be vaccinated, otherwise they will be quarantined for two weeks beforehand, undergo daily tests and no one will be allowed to leave the team. olympic bubble
.
There will be spectators to attend the events, an improvement over the Tokyo Olympics, but none can come from abroad.
In sporting terms, China is not a major nation of the Winter Olympics (62 medals, including 17 gold), but it expects a lot from a Californian by birth, Eileen Gu, 18, who has chosen to represent China, the country of his mother.
The 2021 two-time freestyle skiing world champion is unrivaled in halfpipe and acrobatic descent (slopestyle), and can even aim for a golden treble if she takes part in the big jump. (big air).