The Winter Olympics 2022 in
Beijing kicked off with the opening ceremony on Friday at the National Stadium. The opening ceremony of the Games began at 8.08pm local time as the
Chinese believe eight is an auspicious number. After the opening ceremony, the
games will take place across three cities- Beijing, Yanqing and Zhangjiakou.

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Ice events will be clustered in Beijing. Bobsleigh, skeleton, luge and alpine
skiing will take place in Yanqing.

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Zhangjiakou will stage the
majority of the ski and snowboarding events at the 2022 Winter Games, including
freestyle, cross-country, ski jumping, Nordic combined, and biathlon.

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This year Winter Olympics is
also a game of competing narratives. China’s slogan is “Together for a Shared
Future”, but opponents draw attention to the country’s human rights record.

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On Thursday, India became
the latest nation to announce a diplomatic boycott on the Games after China
named a soldier involved in the Galwan Valley clashes in June 2020 a torchbearer
for the opening ceremony. No Indian envoy will attend the opening and
closing ceremonies. India termed Beijing’s decision “regrettable” and an
attempt to “politicize” the Olympics.

Last night, US Speaker Nancy
Pelosi, US’s top Democrat in Congress, highlighted Beijing’s actions in its own
Xinjiang region, saying the country’s treatment of its Uyghurs population is
“horrible” and “diabolical”. She also called the camps – which the Chinese call
vocational education and training centres – in Xinjiang “slave labour”.

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Earlier, the US, Australia,
UK and Canada have imposed a diplomatic boycott on the Beijing Winter Olympics.

The opening ceremony on
Friday was attended by Russia’s Vladimir Putin, Saudi Arabia’s Mohammed bin
Salman, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev of Kazakhstan and Poland’s Andrzej Duda. A total
of 32 world leaders attended the glittering opening ceremony.

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Though India announced a
diplomatic boycott, India’s lone athlete Arif Khan, an alpine skier, will
compete in the Games. India have sent a six-member contingent to the Beijing Winter
Olympics.