That said, restrictions at the game venues will be very tight and the closed-loop will continue to be rigidly enforced so there is still hope that everything will go as planned. While the games are an exciting and prestigious event, unfortunately, this year, it has been plagued by a number of diplomatic boycotts from countries such as the United States, Australia, Canada and Britain. This is because of the widespread allegations of Chinese atrocities against the Uyghur community there.
For months now, human rights groups and Western governments have been accusing China of genocide in the Xinjiang region. China denied these allegations and claimed that their detention camps there are for the re-education of the Uyghurs and other Muslims. However, human rights groups are saying that there is evidence that Uyghurs are being used as forced labour and that women are being forcibly sterilised. There is also evidence of torture and sexual abuse.
In an attempt to show disapproval of this, these Western governments have said that their representatives will not attend. However, their athletes are still free to compete. The country has also maintained a strict self-imposed border lockdown which has blocked even its own diplomats from entering the country.
The border lockdown has also impacted trade significantly. Skip to main content. When and where will the games take place? What sports will we see at the Olympics? Who will oversee the opening and closing ceremonies? But unlike the only previous U. Olympic boycott in , no athletes will be affected this time.
And no athlete, as of early January, has indicated that they will skip the Beijing Olympics in protest. Some athletes have expressed frustration that the International Olympic Committee has put them in "the position of having to choose between human rights, like morality, [and] being able to do your job," as U. The most prominent athlete to publicly mull skipping the Games cited COVID rules, and treatment while training in China in November, as her reasoning.
They'll be even more restricted than their Summer Olympic counterparts were in Tokyo six months earlier — if, that is, they can even get into China in the first place. One of many strict virus countermeasures is a rule that requires athletes to submit two negative PCR tests before entering the country. They'll be tested again upon arrival at Beijing Capital Airport, and each day throughout their stay.
If any of those tests come back positive, they'll be unable to compete. They almost certainly won't be. Juan Antonio Samaranch, the chair of the Coordination Commission for the Beijing Games, said in December that there was no imaginable scenario that would lead to postponement. The outlined countermeasures, Samaranch said, "can cope with mostly everything that can happen in the world about and around COVID.
To enter the Olympic bubble, athletes will either need to be fully vaccinated or serve an unfeasible day quarantine. So, barring medical exemptions, they'll all be vaccinated. There is no booster mandate, unless an athlete's home country requires a booster to be considered "fully vaccinated. Foreign fans were barred months ago , but organizers said at the time that residents of mainland China would be allowed to attend.
As of early January, uncertainty lingers. No tickets have been distributed. NBC will broadcast the Olympics each night beginning at 8 p. Beijing is 13 hours ahead of U. Eastern Time, so some events that NBC shows in primetime will be replays.
Others, though, have been scheduled for the morning in Beijing so that they can be shown live in the U. They do. NBC, which will broadcast both, and which wields immense power in the Olympic world, actually craved the overlap. It will cross-promote each event during the other. Its Super Bowl coverage will lead right into Olympics coverage on Feb. Figure skating begins Feb.
Some medal events are in the morning, allowing U. Hockey begins early with women's group play, then flips to men's group play, then charges toward the medal rounds. The gold medal games are Wednesday, Feb. ET women and Saturday, Feb. ET men. ET against Finland. They play Canada, whom they beat to win gold in , in their last of four groups games on Monday, Feb.
Zhang said he considers the Beijing 's opening ceremony as a classic event that cannot be repeated, so the Beijing version will try to stand apart by heading in a different direction.
In contrast to the four-hour-long ceremony and 15, performers used in the ceremony, Zhang told the Xinhua News Agency that the opening ceremony for the Winter Olympics will rely on high technology instead of using the previous "huge-crowd" strategy and will only last less than minutes and feature about 3, actors.
Igniting the Olympic Cauldron is expected to be the highlight of the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics, Xinhua reported.
0コメント