2022 Winter Olympics
The 2022 Winter Olympics, officially called the XXIV Olympic Winter Games and commonly known as Beijing 2022, were an international winter multi-sport event held from 4 to 20 February 2022 in Beijing, China, and surrounding areas with competition in selected events beginning 2 February 2022. It was the 24th edition of the Winter Olympic Games. These were the final winter games to take place under the IOC presidency of Thomas Bach.
Beijing was selected as the host city on 31 July 2015 during the 128th IOC Session in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, marking its second time hosting the Olympics and the last of three consecutive Games held in East Asia, following the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang County, South Korea, and the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. Having previously hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics, Beijing became the first city to have hosted both the Summer and Winter Olympics. The venues for the Games were concentrated around Beijing, its suburb Yanqing District, and Zhangjiakou, with some events repurposing venues originally built for Beijing 2008.
The Games featured a record 109 medal events across 15 disciplines, with big air freestyle skiing and women's monobob making their Olympic debuts as medal events, as well as several new mixed competitions in freestyle skiing aerials, ski jumping, snowboard cross and short track speed skating. A total of 2,880 athletes representing 91 teams competed in the Games, with Haiti and Saudi Arabia making their Winter Olympic debut.
Similar to the 2008 Games, Beijing's hosting of the 2022 Games was subject to various concerns and controversies including those related to human rights violations in China, such as the persecution of Uyghurs in China, which led to calls for a boycott of the games. Ten countries, including Lithuania, the United States, Australia, Estonia, Latvia, India, Canada, the United Kingdom and Belgium, participated in a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics, sending athletes but no government officials. Several other countries, including Austria, Slovenia, Sweden, and the Netherlands, also did not send officials but cited its decision was due to COVID-19 precautions. At least nine European nations did not join the boycott and sent representatives to the games, including France, Italy, Norway, Poland, Romania, the Czech Republic, Ireland, Greece and Finland. The Chinese government's internet troll networks were mobilized before the Games to support government messaging, including campaigns of intimidation against human rights activists abroad. Controversies over the Games were censored on the press and internet, while foreign journalists were harassed and detained.
Like the Summer Olympics held six months earlier in Tokyo, the 2022 Winter Olympics took place during the COVID-19 pandemic and were largely closed to the public, with only selected events open to invited guests at a reduced capacity. To minimise the risk of virus transmission, China implemented strict health and safety measures, including a closed-loop system, frequent testing, and quarantine protocols for participants. Consequently, no major outbreaks were reported during the Games. China's mass surveillance practices led to espionage concerns among Games attendees, including unauthorized collection of data from the required smartphone app, so several National Olympic Committees recommended the use of burner phones instead of bringing personal devices to the Games.
Norway finished at the top of the medal table for the third successive Winter Olympics, winning a total of 37 medals, of which 16 were gold, setting a new record for the largest number of gold medals won at a single Winter Olympics. Germany finished second with 12 golds and 27 medals overall. The United States finished third with 9 golds and 25 medals overall, and the host nation China finished fourth with nine gold medals and also eleventh place by total medals won, marking its most successful performance in Winter Olympics history. Sweden finished fifth with 8 golds and 18 medals overall, which is that nation's most successful Winter Olympics of all time in terms of both gold and total number of medals. The team representing the ROC ended up with the second largest number of medals won at the Games, with 32, but finished ninth on the medal table, as only five gold medals were won by the delegation. Although traditional Winter powerhouse Canada won 26 medals, only four of them were gold, resulting in a finish outside the top ten in the medal table for the first time since 1988.
Bidding process
The bidding calendar was announced by the International Olympic Committee in October 2012, with the application deadline set for 14 November 2013. The IOC Executive Board reviewed the bids from all applicant cities on 7 July 2014 and selected three cities, Oslo, Almaty, and Beijing, as the final candidates.Several bid cities withdrew their bids during the process, citing the high costs or the lack of local support and funding for hosting the Games. The Oslo bid, considered the clear frontrunner, was canceled in the wake of a series of revelations about the IOC's demands for luxury treatment of IOC members that strongly turned public opinion and the parliamentary majority against the bid. The city withdrew its application for government funding after a majority of the Norwegian parliament had stated their intention to decline the application. In the days before the decision, Norwegian media had revealed the IOC's "diva-like demands for luxury treatment" for the IOC members themselves, such as special lanes on all roads only to be used by IOC members and cocktail reception at the Royal Palace with drinks paid for by the royal family. The IOC also "demanded control over all advertising space throughout Oslo" to be used exclusively by IOC's sponsors, something that is not possible in Norway because the government doesn't own or control "all advertising space throughout Oslo" and has no authority to give a foreign private organisation exclusive use of a city and the private property within it. Several commentators pointed out that such demands were unheard of in a western democracy; Slate described the IOC as a "notoriously ridiculous organization run by grifters and hereditary aristocrats." Ole Berget, deputy minister in the Finance Ministry, said "the IOC's arrogance was an argument held high by a lot of people." The country's largest newspaper commented that "Norway is a rich country, but we don't want to spend money on wrong things, like satisfying the crazy demands from IOC apparatchiks. These insane demands that they should be treated like the king of Saudi Arabia just won't fly with the Norwegian public."
Beijing was selected as the host city of the 2022 Winter Olympics after beating Almaty by four votes on 31 July 2015 at the 128th IOC Session in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
| City | Nation | Votes |
| Beijing | ''' ChinaDevelopment and preparationsVenuesIn February 2021, Beijing announced that the 26 venues for these sports would be running on entirely renewable energy.There were three different clusters of venues designed and constructed for the 2022 Winter Olympics, each respectively known as the Beijing Zone, the Zhangjiakou Zone, and the Yanqing Zone. Beijing ZoneVenues in the Beijing Zone exist in different conditions; some were recently constructed exclusively for the 2022 games, while the rest were renovated from the 2008 Summer Olympics or other existing sites. The Beijing Zone of the 2022 Winter Olympics consisted of six competition venues and was where the Opening and Closing Ceremonies, for both the 2022 Winter Olympics and 2008 Summer Olympics, would take place.Five ice events were held at the Olympic Green, the Capital Indoor Stadium and the Beijing Wukesong Sports Center, which had been some of the main venues of the 2008 Summer Olympics. The Big Air snowboarding and freestyle skiing events were held in a former industrial area in Shijingshan District, in Western Hills area. Since the end of 2009, the Beijing Olympic Village apartments on the Olympic Green had been transformed into a residential area. There was therefore a need to build another Olympic Village on a smaller scale for the Winter Olympics. These new buildings are located in the southern area of Olympic Green on the neighbourhood of the National Olympic Sports Center and served as a Chinese Olympic Committee residential complex for those athletes who underwent training at the nearby venues. The Beijing National Stadium is an iconic venue in the Beijing Zone, also known as the Bird's Nest. The Beijing National Stadium was the site that hosted the Opening and Closing Ceremonies for the 2022 Winter Olympics, but it did not host any competition in 2022. The National Aquatics Center, also known as the Water Cube, was the venue for Curling competition. In the 2022 Winter Olympics, the National Aquatics Center became the first Olympic venue to incorporate a curling track in the swimming pool. The Shougang Big Air was newly constructed for the 2022 Winter Olympics. The Shougang Big Air hosted the freestyle skiing and snowboarding events. The Wukesong Sports Centre was under an 8-month renovation for the 2022 Winter Olympics. In February 2022, the Wukesong Sports Centre hosted the 2022 Winter Olympics Men's and Women's ice hockey tournaments. The National Indoor Stadium was the second venue for the ice hockey tournament for the 2022 Winter Olympics, besides the Wukesong Sports Centre. The National Speed Skating Oval has the nickname "Ice Ribbon" due to its exterior design. The National Speed Skating Oval was the venue for speed skating in the 2022 Winter Olympics. The Capital Indoor Stadium, also known as the Capital Gymnasium, was a venue adapted from the 2008 Summer Olympics and was reconstructed for short-track speed skating and figure skating competitions in the 2022 Winter Olympics.
|