Beijing Winter Olympics underway amid strict COVID restrictions and diplomatic boycott
Beijing is about to become the first city to host both a winter and summer Olympic Games when it launches a locked-down Winter Olympics opening ceremony on Friday.
The ceremony returns to the same now-familiar, lattice-encased National Stadium known as the Bird's Nest, built in consultation with Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei for the 2008 summer event.
You can watch the ceremony in the player above, starting at 13:00 CET.
The country where the coronavirus outbreak emerged two years ago will proudly project its might, even as some Western governments mounted a diplomatic boycott over the way China treats millions of its people.
And while some are staying away from the second pandemic-hit Olympics in six months, many other world leaders planned to attend the opening ceremony.
Russian President Vladimir Putin -- who met privately with China's Xi Jinping earlier in the day as a dangerous standoff unfolds at Russia's border with Ukraine -- will be the most notable dignitary in attendance.
The Olympics — and the opening ceremony — are always an exercise in performance for the host nation, a chance to showcase its culture, define its place in the world and flaunt its best side.
From Sarajevo to Sochi and Sapporo to Salt Lake City, the Winter Olympics are particularly captivating for the impressive sports feats in ice and snow.
But at this year's Beijing Games, the gulf between performance and reality will be particularly jarring.
Fourteen years ago, a Beijing opening ceremony that featured massive pyrotechnic displays and thousands of card-flipping performers set a new standard of extravagance to start an Olympics that no host since has matched. It was a fitting start to an event often billed as China's "coming out."
However, the
Read more on euronews.com
