Beijing Games begin amid cloud of critical questions
Politics, pandemic threaten to overshadow competition
BEIJING — Long before the global pandemic upended sports and the world in general, the 2022 Winter Olympics faced unsettling problems.
It started with the fact that hardly anybody wanted to host them.
Beijing ended up solving that problem, but only after four European cities dropped out. In the end, it was a race between two authoritarian countries. The IOC narrowly chose China’s capital over a bid from Kazakhstan. “It really is a safe choice,” IOC president Thomas Bach said after the balloting.
Seven years after that fateful vote, the world will find out if Bach was right. Starting with Friday’s opening ceremony, the spotlight will be trained on China, a country with a human-rights record that troubles many, an authoritarian government and a “zero-tolerance” policy when it comes to COVID. It will be trained on what figures to be the most closed-off, tightly-controlled, hard-to-navigate Olympics in history.
“This is one where you can do your absolute best, but you kind of have to juggle your sanity and being able to perform at the Olympics and not lose your mind beforehand,” U.S. moguls skier Hannah Soar said.
But there has been so much to process in the lead-up.
■ Human Rights. Led by the U.S., a number of Western countries are staging a diplomatic boycott of the Games to protest what human-rights groups have called the genocide of some 1 million Uyghurs in China’s western Xinjiang province.
■ Health and safety. To try to prevent the spread of COVID, China will run these Olympics in a “closed-loop” system. Participants will be tested daily. None will be allowed out of the hotels and venues that are cordoned off from the city and mountains where the Games will take place.
■ Tennis player Peng Shuai. The Chinese champion’s safety has been in question since she accused a former high-ranking government official of sexually assaulting her. The IOC has indicated it will meet with Peng during the Olympics, but previous meetings have brought forth as many questions as answers.
■ Cybersecurity. Many countries are advising athletes to leave their cell phones and laptops home lest they be compromised by the Chinese government.
■ Russia. President Vladimir Putin is expected to attend the opening ceremony in what some view as an audacious bit of politicking. With tensions escalating on the Ukraine border, this conjures memories of the 2014 Olympics in Putin’s home country, during which Russia invaded and took over Crimea. It also is viewed as a slap in the face to anti-doping regulators who tried to sanction Russia.
■ The environment. The mountains hosting action sports and cross-country skiing are about 150 miles from the Gobi Desert; they average less than a foot of snow a year. Though snowmaking is nothing new at Olympic venues, this is touted as the first Games to rely completely on artificial snow. The country had to build massive irrigation systems and will use up to 800 Olympic-sized swimming pools’ worth of water. It brings into question Beijing’s claims that these Games will be carbon neutral.
Oh, and about the sports — Norway is a decent bet to win the most medals, in part on the strength of a deep roster of biathletes and cross-country skiers. Russia, officially called “Russian Olympic Committee” because of doping sanctions, could challenge. Its men’s hockey team is favored after the NHL decided not to send players to the Olympics.