In a world where the Olympic Games have changed significantly since its last appearance, the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony will be held Feb. 4.
The 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics marked China’s “coming out” as a global superpower. A third of the global audience tuned in for the $100 million event. A production featuring the finest of Chinese culture and history was attended by 15,000 participants.. An estimated 91,000 people, including U.S. President George W. Bush and other world leaders, attended the event, which Steven Spielberg had called the “Grandest spectacle of the New Millennium.”
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As the world pandemic is entering its third year, Beijing 2022 Games will become the second Olympics under COVID-19. Nearly all spectators and foreign supporters are prohibited. And geopolitical tensions hang over the Beijing Winter Olympics: The U.S. and some allies announced a diplomatic boycott amid criticism of China’s human rights record, and athletes are being warned against speaking out while in the country.
But China vowed it will stage a historic opening ceremony nonetheless, including a cauldron lighting that is “unprecedented in the over 100-year history of the Olympic Games,” with performers from across the country of 1.4 billion people.
Here’s what you need to know about the 2022 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony.
Which year is the opening ceremony of 2022 Beijing Olympics?
February 4th will be the opening ceremony of 2022 Winter Games. The Beijing Olympics’ formal opening will begin at 7:30 p.m. China Standard Time—or 6:30 a.m. ET, 3:30 AM PT.
What is the best way to watch the Opening Ceremony of 2022 Beijing Olympics?
Viewers outside the U.S. will be able to watch the Olympic Opening Ceremonies live at 6:30 a.m. on NBC, USA Network, and Olympic Channel. ET on Feb. 4. NBC will have a primetime broadcast at 8 p.m. that same day. ET. A re-airing will be at 12:38 am. ET will air on February 5. Premium users of NBC’s online streaming service, Peacock, can watch the event live, while a live stream will also be available on NBCOlympics.com.
NBC’s U.S. telecast will be broadcast at primetime, unlike the 2008 Summer Olympics.
The Games can be viewed in Britain on Eurosport or the BBC. Viewers from Australia and Canada, however, can view them on the national broadcasters.
What are our expectations from the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony
Beijing’s organizing committee assured a “simple, safe and splendid” staging of the Winter Games during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the opening ceremony will reflect that theme.
Zhang Yimou (internationally-acclaimed filmmaker) returns to the Beijing Winter Olympics opening ceremony in 2022. He promised a “different and unique” opening this time around in an interview with state-run news outlet Xinhua: “China’s status in the world, the image of the Chinese and the rise of our national status—everything is totally different now.”
With an expected runtime of 1 hour and 40 minutes and some 3,000 performers joining, the ceremony has been scaled down from 2008’s extravaganza due to cold weather and the pandemic. It will still be held at the National Stadium, dubbed the “Bird’s Nest,” and Zhang promises an “innovative” cauldron-lighting that will echo China’s thrust towards environmental protection.
After running along the National Stadium’s top rim, Li Ning, a Chinese gymnast, and entrepreneur, lit the Olympic torch. He was suspended in midair using wires. China has yet to announce the torchbearer for this year’s Games.
What will you be seeing at the Winter Olympics in 2018?
Some 2,900 athletes from over 90 countries are expected to attend February’s Winter Games in China, close to figures of participating athletes in Sochi, Russia2014. Pyeongchang (South Korea)In 2018.
Alpine skiing makes an Olympic return for the U.S. Mikaela ShiffrinHe won a medal in giant slalom, and also a silver medal in alpine combined 2018. She was just 18 when she won the Olympic alpine skiing slalom title in Sochi 2014.
U.S. Team will send 2018 halfpipe gold medalists Chloe Kim—the youngest woman to win an Olympic gold medal in snowboarding—and three-time figure skating World Champion Nathan Chen, who is set to go up against Japan’s Hanyu Yuzuru, the first Asian men’s singles skater to win Olympic gold.
China’s freestyle skiing prodigy Eileen GuAt 18 years of age, she will be making an Olympic debut by participating in three events: slopestyle, big-air, and half-pipe. She will join some 400 athletes representing the host country in the Games—a sharp increase in the number of Chinese athletes in the Winter Olympics. China sent a total of 202 athletes to the Games in 2018. 82 athletesPyeongchang.
Learn more Eileen Gu skis on the Road to Beijing Olympics
Norway, which won the most medals in the last Winter Games, will field Jarl Magnus Riiber who already won silver in 2018’s Olympic team skiing event, as well as gold medalist for the men’s 20km individual biathlon, Johannes Thingnes Bø.
Who won’t attend the Winter Olympics this year?
Several countries including the U.S., U.K., Canada, and Australia have decided against sending diplomats to the Games, as part of an Olympic boycott over China’s failure to address human rights abuses, particularly in Xinjiang. Boycotts aren’t new to the Olympics—with the most prominent one staged by the U.S. in 1980 Moscow Games—but the recent snubs ended a détente over the Olympics that has been there since the end of the Cold War.
Unlike in previous boycotts, athletes will be allowed to join the Games. But they’ve been advised against Political opinionsWhile competing in Beijing. This warning did not go down well with them boycotting governments.
Learn more What the U.S. Does to Stop China’s Olympics The U.S. Is Splitting the World by Boycotting the Beijing Olympics
COVID-19 also stopped some athletes: the U.S. National Hockey League players won’t participate in the Beijing Games following a series of postponements of regular season NHL games.
North Korea won’t send athletes to the Games, albeit for a different reason. The International Olympic Committee will be establishing itself in September 2020. suspended the isolationist state’s Olympic panel until the end of 2022 after it failed to send athletes to the Tokyo Summer Olympics—effectively barring its athletes from joining this year.
Can fans attend?
The local organizing committee was formed after Beijing had reported the first case of Omicron COVID-19 variation. AnnoucedNo tickets will be available for sale to Chinese people. Instead, they will be distributed to certain groups, who still need to “abide by the COVID-19 countermeasures” for the event’s entirety.
Beijing will follow Tokyo’s lead and ban international spectators attending the Games. This marks the 2nd Olympics in which there are no overseas supporters due to COVID-19.
What information do we need about these venues?
While Beijing is the official Olympics host city, two other neighboring areas will also stage events—the mountainous suburb of Yanqing and popular ski destination Zhangjiakou, both located northwest of Beijing. The high-speed rail specially designed for these Games connects the three areas. Passengers will be able to travel the 46-mile distance to Yanqing or the 111 mile to Zhangjiakou within one hour. There will be Olympic villages in each region that can host more than 6,500 athletes and officials.
Beijing’s National Stadium will not host any sporting events, but it will be the site of the Opening and Closing Ceremonies. Previous Olympic venues in the city such as the National Aquatics Center and the National Indoor Stadium will be reused, but China also built a new dome—the Ice Ribbon—specifically for the speed skating competitions. The country also constructed the Big Air Shougang stadium for freestyle skiing and snowboard Big Air competitions in Beijing, making it the world’s first permanent venue for Big Air.
Yanqing will host alpine ski events as well as sliding events, including bobsled and luge. Zhangjiakou hosts the majority of snowboarding and ski competitions such as cross-country, freestyle and ski jumping.
What will China do to reduce COVID-19-related infections at the Winter Olympics in China?
Western countries have criticized China’s draconian approach to suppress any domestic outbreak of COVID-19, using widespread surveillance and mass testing to track any infection, as well as rigid lockdowns and border closures in order to contain its spread. To date, China’s “zero COVID” policy has helped keep the number of coronavirus-related deaths to just 4,849 for the entire pandemic, despite the SARS-CoV-2 virus being first detected in China. Only 3 deaths have been reported in China from COVID-19, compared with the 58. 2,638In the U.S.
Learn more Don’t Expect China to Ease Its Zero-COVID Policy After the Beijing Olympics
Zero COVID Policy is the core of the Beijing Olympics anti–epidemic plan. Last December. China will manage athletes and other inbound participants under a “closed-loop” system. Athletes, coaches and the media will only be allowed to visit designated Olympics venues using special transportation that is separate from Beijing’s 21.5 million people. The three zones of Beijing, Yanqing, and Zhangjiakou will have their own closed loop systems—barring those inside from having any contact with the wider Chinese population. Transferring from one closed loop system into another requires that they take either designated trains or specific buses.
Participant who have not been vaccinated are required to stay 21 days at a designated quarantine unit before they can be admitted into the closed loop system.
All Olympics media and participants must wear masks, except for when they are competing or eating. The MY2022 App, created specifically for this Games, will monitor their health daily. (Cybersecurity experts have flagged data security flaws in the app—prompting some Western governments to urge the Use of burner phones.)
Atheletes who are positive to the test will not be permitted to participate in Olympic events or compete. A hospital will send symptomatic participants to be treated, while asymptomatic individuals will be taken to isolation centers. The patient in both cases will be allowed to leave the hospital only if they have returned two consecutive negative COVID-19 tests. The patient must be negative for the virus once they have returned to the Games. This includes a 6-hour-long test to confirm close contact.
Learn more What Does It Mean for an Olympic Athlete to Test Positive for COVID-19?
Chinese citizens who volunteer or work for the Olympics must have a COVID-19 booster shot two weeks prior to entering the loop. The MY2022 application must be installed on their smartphones. They will also need to test for the virus every day. They are required to stay in the closed loop throughout the event—which means they will miss traditional Lunar New Year celebrations usually spent with family.
There are some 19,000 volunteersThe state-run newspaper reports that workers will work in the Olympic Games for 19 days. Global Times.
