An Opening Ceremony in Searching for Unity in Divider Games


BEIJING — Thousands of artists jumped and spun on the 125,000 square foot, high-definition LED stage programmed to resemble a glowing sheet of ice.

A parade of athletes from 90 countries and regions passed between them, clad in balloon jackets and masked due to the pandemic. Together, they waved their gloved hands and national flags towards the crowds of spectators scattered across the imposing grandstands of the China National Stadium.

On a cold Friday night in Beijing, a stormy, monochrome ceremony ushered in one of the most logistically complex, tightly controlled, and politically charged ceremonies. Olympic Games In history. In this extraordinary environment, Beijing became the first city to host both the Summer and Winter Olympics.

“Tonight, the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games opens as planned,” said Cai Qi, chairman of the Beijing organizing committee, “a long-held dream comes true.”

In 2008, in the same building, China intended to signal a new open stance towards the global community. So what message did this show, this ceremony, these Games want to convey to the world?

The night before the ceremony, the question was posed to International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach, a German lawyer (and gold-medal fencer) who often tends to speak in roundabout paragraphs. His answer was six words.

“China is a country of winter sports,” Bach said.

The answer, in its brevity and humility, said volumes about the mood that permeated the Olympic movement prior to these Games. Throughout history, athletes, politicians, fans, and commentators have regularly heralded international sport as an arena, symbol, and catalyst for social change. But in the last six months the IOC has gone to great lengths to highlight how narrow its influence really is, how little power it really has to influence the world – in response to relentless questions from activists, journalists, athletes and fans.

In every context, the Olympics continue to represent an expanding festival of shared humanity and sporting achievement. In a polarized world, few things can bring together so many people from so many corners of the world.

But they can still turn into Winter Games of limitations, softened expectations, cold pragmatism.

No matter how the evening was interpreted, it was conveyed during the two-hour ceremony at the stadium known as the Bird’s Nest, where China delivered its own message to the sports world.

There were 3,000 artists, far fewer than 15,000, who attended the four-hour ceremony that opened the Summer Games in 2008. According to the organizers, these were “ordinary people” of all ages from Beijing and Hebei provinces.

It was a shorter, simpler, plainer ceremony due to both the freezing cold and the pandemic, and despite this ceremony, it froze the proceedings.

As tickets are not open to the public, privately invited spectators at times ignored organizers’ instructions to refrain from cheering to stop the potential spread of the coronavirus.

“As with all Olympic Games, the mission of these Olympic Games is to bring the world together in peaceful competition,” said Bach, “to unite humanity in all our diversity, always building bridges, never erecting walls.”

For some, the irony will be that no Olympics has had so many walls in the “bubble” China has created to keep the virus out. Walls appear here in all shapes and sizes.

The walls surrounding the National Stadium, where the ceremony was held, athletes’ villages, venues and the main press center separated the Games from the city in which they operated. Tall fences watched by guards surround many hotels where international journalists and other Olympic participants will spend the next two weeks. Open partitions even separate people in event dining rooms.

The ceremony was in a sense an effort to revive some of the social spirit of the Games.

Athletes from traditional Winter Games powers such as Norway, the United States, Russia and Canada marched between countries for the first time, including Haiti, Saudi Arabia, Uganda and Vietnam.

The flag bearers of the United States were speed skater Brittany Bowe and gold medal curler John Shuster. Sledge Elana Meyers Taylor was initially selected to carry the flag, but when she arrived in Beijing she tested positive for coronavirus and was forced into isolation like a number of other athletes there.

Speaking at the ceremony, Bach said, “Our hearts are with the athletes who have not been able to fulfill their dreams due to the pandemic.”

Athletes will compete in a Game that continues to improve their competition over time. For example, the IOC sought to ensure equal representation of women and men at its Games. The percentage of female competitors here will increase from 41 percent at the 2018 Olympics in South Korea to 45 percent.

Still, the mood around these Winter Games felt lukewarm in other ways.

For example, international sponsors and broadcasters underestimated the host country, disrupting their normal promotions surrounding the Games. News organizations around the world, including a few from the United States, chose to send stripped teams or in some cases skipped the Games altogether.

All this gave the impression that the Winter Games would somehow be enjoyed and celebrated less than endure.

The IOC can look at the upcoming host city rankings: Paris in 2024, Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo in 2026, and Los Angeles in 2028.

But first comes the two-week competition in Beijing and the surrounding mountains, where athletes will strive for a sense of normalcy in an extremely abnormal environment, in extremely abnormal times.

In the closing moments of the ceremony, Bach wished the crowd a happy Lunar New Year in English and Chinese. Xi stood up, took off his mask, and announced that the Games had opened. The Olympic cauldron was lit.

It continued as an atypical Olympic picture, with a rather typical explosion of music and fireworks.



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