The Olympic flame climbed the Great Wall, the Chinese symbol par excellence, on Thursday, on the eve of the official opening of the Beijing Winter Games, marked by the threat of an epidemic and diplomatic tensions.
The opening ceremony does not take place until Friday at 8:00 p.m. local time (7:00 a.m. in Quebec), but the first events – curling – began Wednesday evening in these second Olympics of the COVID era, after those from Tokyo last summer.
Competition continued Thursday with the first games of the women’s ice hockey tournament, qualifying in mogul skiing and the second day of the mixed doubles curling tournament.
On Thursday morning, in fine weather but freezing cold, the torchbearers climbed the steps of the Great Wall at the historical site of Badaling, in the snowless mountains 75 km northwest of Beijing.
Hong Kong kung fu actor Jackie Chan was among the torch bearers, saying he was “very proud” to represent China on this occasion.
But the controversies do not subside on the eve of kick-off.
The start of the torch relay on Wednesday was the subject of controversy in India, when the press revealed that one of the torchbearers was a Chinese soldier involved in a 2020 clash with the Indian army in the Himalayas.
The bare-knuckle fight had caused the death of at least twenty Indian soldiers and four Chinese, seriously deteriorating relations between the two great neighbors.
Forbidden to fraternize
Beijing continues to criticize the mix of sport and politics in response to the “diplomatic boycott” observed by several Western countries, including Canada and the United States, to denounce human rights violations in China.
These countries send many athletes to Beijing, but no official delegation or diplomats.
In response, the communist regime last week published a list of 20 world leaders who will be present at the Games, foremost among them Vladimir Putin, at the center of global attention due to fears of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Coincidence or not, Russia had waged war on Georgia, another pro-Western ex-Soviet republic, during the previous Beijing Olympics in 2008.
The Kremlin on Wednesday claimed China’s support for its demands vis-à-vis the West, before a meeting between Putin and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Olympics.
At the end of January, the Chinese Foreign Minister, Wang Yi, had given his support to Moscow’s “reasonable concerns” vis-à-vis Ukraine.
In this tense context, the Ukrainian government asked its athletes not to fraternize with the Russians during the Games.
300 positive cases
The Beijing Olympics welcome 92 delegations and exactly 2892 participants. Due to the COVID-19 epidemic, they are confined in a sanitary bubble which includes competition sites, hotels and press centres.
No contact is allowed with the general population outside the bubble, with Beijing observing a zero COVID strategy.
Participants are screened daily. As of Thursday, nearly 300 positive cases had been counted since the entry into force of the device on January 23.
Despite the epidemic context, the Beijing Games “will forever change the scale of winter sports”, assured Thomas Bach, the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC).
“China has already made history by surpassing the goal of introducing 300 million of its citizens to snow and ice sports,” he said, opening the 139th session of the Olympic body on Thursday.
If the image of the Olympic alpine ski site, built from scratch in the middle of arid mountains with 100% artificial snow, leaves many foreign observers perplexed, “today we can say it: China is a country winter sports”, said Thomas Bach.
In a message to the participants, Xi Jinping promised that China would “do its best to provide the world with simple, safe and splendid Games”.
In the evening, the Peng Shuai case, named after the Chinese tennis player who accused a former Chinese leader of forced sex, resurfaced during a press conference by Thomas Bach, when asked about his fate.
“If she wants an investigation [sur ces accusations], of course we will support her, but it must be her decision, it is her life, these are her accusations. We had the accusations and we also heard the withdrawal” of these accusations, declared the boss of the IOC who recalled that he was going to meet the player during the Olympic Games without giving a date.