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Olympics burst into life under shadow of COVID and conflict

February 4, 2022
Olympics burst into life under shadow of COVID and conflict
Olympics burst into life under shadow of COVID and conflict

Chinese President Xi Jinping opened a Beijing Winter Olympics on Friday that not only bear…
Reuters Reuters
By Tony Munroe, Muyu Xu and Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber
  • Sparkling ceremony presented to slimmed-down audience
  • No tickets sold for Olympic events because of COVID
  • Xi and Putin proclaim friendship with “no limits”
  • Leaders publicly back each other’s positions on Ukraine, Taiwan
  • Backdrop of rivalry unseen since Cold War-era boycotts

BEIJING, Feb 4 (Reuters) – Chinese President Xi Jinping opened a Beijing Winter Olympics on Friday that not only bear the mark of the global coronavirus pandemic but are also mixing sport and global politics as few others have since the era of the Cold War.

The scintillating opening ceremony ended with a member of China’s Uyghur minority – whose treatment is the focus of international human rights criticism – helping to light the Olympic cauldron, hours after Xi announced a new strategic alliance with visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin. read more

Three thousand performers took to a stage comprising 11,600 sq metres of high-definition LED screens in the famed Bird’s Nest stadium, before a crowd thinned out by COVID-19 restrictions. read more

Dancers poured in waving glowing green stalks to mark the first day of spring on the Chinese calendar, followed by an explosion of white and green fireworks that spelled the word “Spring”…

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE… | Reuters

Published in Coronavirus, Sport News and World News

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