Beijing Olympics: Opening ceremony set to kick off 2022 Winter Games

The 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing are set to kick off Friday with an opening ceremony that organizers promise will be a great “spectacle.”

That’s despite a shortened runtime and smaller number of participants due to both colder weather and the COVID-19 pandemic. There will also be fewer people in the stands and in the parade of nations thanks to both COVID-19 and a diplomatic boycott by several Western nations — including Canada.

Here’s what to expect from the opening celebration, which kicks off at 7 a.m. Eastern time (8 p.m. local time).

The last time China hosted the Olympics, the opening ceremony to the 2008 Summer Games lasted for over four hours, with over 15,000 participants including a massive sea of drummers and capped with a majestic fireworks display.

This year’s ceremony will be very different. Participants have been slashed to just 4,000 to limit the spread of COVID-19, and the show will clock in at about two hours due to the colder February weather.

The festivities will still take place at the Beijing National Stadium, known as the Bird’s Nest — which also hosted the opening and closing ceremonies in 2008 — and will feature dancers, singers and a fireworks display like previous ceremonies.

The opening ceremony will also see the Olympic torch lit, officially signalling the start of the Games.

The traditional parade of nations will also be impacted by COVID-19, with many athletes staying away due to both Beijing’s strict protocols and not wanting to risk catching the virus ahead of competition.

Spectators will also be limited to smaller groups of selected attendees.

Meanwhile, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and India, among other nations, have joined a diplomatic boycott, meaning no delegation will be supporting athletes from the stands. Athletes from those nations are still allowed to participate, however.

Women’s hockey captain Marie-Philip Poulin and short-track speedskating star Charles Hamelin have been named Canada’s flag-bearers for the event.

A three-time medallist, Poulin scored the game-winning goals at both the 2010 and 2014 Olympics. She helped Canada to silver at the 2018 Games in Pyeongchang, South Korea.

The 37-year-old Hamelin, from Sainte-Julie Que., is a winner of five Olympic medals, including three gold, tying him for Canada’s most decorated male winter Olympian.

In the absence of many G7 superpowers, Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to attend the ceremony and visit with Chinese President Xi Jinping during the Games.

The diplomatic boycott was sparked by various human rights controversies in China, most significantly the treatment of Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang region and a crackdown on pro-democracy protests and political speech in Hong Kong.

Those and other issues have led to calls from activists for a broader boycott of the Games — even an outright cancellation. Yet China and the International Olympic Committee say the Games will go ahead, with Beijing dismissing criticisms of its human rights record.

“The so-called China human rights issue is a lie made up by people with ulterior motives,” Zhao Weidong, spokesperson for the Beijing Games, told Reuters in an interview on Thursday when asked if such criticism had undermined the Games.

“I want to emphasise that the Olympics is a great spectacle for athletes and sports fans across the world. From the current situation, many countries and athletes have expressed their support for the Beijing Winter Olympics,” he said.

“The opening ceremony is tomorrow. I believe that at the instance in which the Olympic flame is lit, all of this so-called boycott banter will be extinguished,” he added.

The ceremony will be broadcast live by CBC on its various platforms.

Because CBC has exclusive broadcast rights for the Olympics, Global News will not be streaming the show online.

However, Global will have extensive coverage of the Games as they unfold over the next two weeks, both online and on its broadcast platforms.

— with files from Reuters

by Global News