The Beijing Winter Olympics 2022 got underway on Friday, February 4 with a stunning opening ceremony as China invited the world for a second Games in the COVID-19 pandemic era.

Beijing became the first city to host both the Summer and Winter Olympics, with China this time an emboldened and more powerful nation whose government’s authoritarian turn provoked some countries’ leaders to stay home. 

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A glittering opening ceremony saw athletes Zhao Jiawen and Dinigeer Yilamujiang delivering the Olympic flame. The choice of Yilamujiang, a member of the country’s Uyghur Muslim minority, was steeped in symbolism: Western governments and human rights groups say the Beijing government has oppressed Uyghurs on a massive scale.

After 16 days of games, the Winter Olympics came to an end on Sunday, February 20.

Here is the final medal tally on February 20:

Norway finished first with 16 gold medals, eight silver medals, and 13 bronze medals. Germany finished second, with 12 gold, 10 silver, and five bronze medals. Hosts China completed a late push to finish third, and ended the games with nine gold, four silver, and two bronze medals. 

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The US finished fourth with eight gold, 10 silver, and seven bronze medals. Sweden finished fifth with eight gold, 5 silver, and five bronze medals.

The highlights of the final day:

Alpine Skiing – Mixed Team Parallel:

The top-ranked Austrians won gold in the Winter Games’ second iteration of the mixed team parallel event, holding off Germany in the final.

Mikaela Shiffrin and the American mixed ski team missed out on a medal by 0.42 seconds, losing in the bronze matchup in the final Alpine ski event of the Beijing Olympics. Norway won the bronze.

The U.S. primarily used Shiffrin on the slower of the parallel courses, and she lost three of her four heats. Teammate River Radamus delivered the win the U.S. needed in the last heat to force a 2-2 tie, but he wasn’t fast enough to tilt the tiebreaker — combined times of the fastest man and woman — to the Americans’ favor.

Austria also tied in the final against the Germans, but Stefan Brennsteiner and Katharina Liensberger took their heats in a faster combined time than Lena Duerr and Alexander Schmid.

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Bobsled – 4 Man:

Francesco Friedrich and Germany have finished off an unforgettable show in sliding at the Beijing Olympics.

Friedrich won his second Olympic gold medal in Beijing and fourth of his career by driving to the win Sunday in the four-man event, the final sliding race of these games.

There were 10 sliding events in Beijing. Germany won gold in nine of them and took 16 medals overall. The rest of the world combined had 14 medals in sliding.

Johannes Lochner won silver for Germany on Sunday and Justin Kripps of Canada got the bronze. Hunter Church was 10th for the U.S. and Frank DelDuca tied for 13th.

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Cross-country Skiing – Women’s 30km Mass Start:

Therese Johaug of Norway won the women’s 30-kilometer mass start, her third gold at the Beijing Olympics.

Fighting fierce winds and brutal temperatures, she went out front early in the race and held on, finishing in 1 hour, 24 minutes and 54 seconds. Johaug also won the skiathlon and 10-kilometer classic race.

American Jessie Diggins kept a steady pace behind the Norwegian as gusts whipped across the tracks, battering the skiers. She crossed the finish line 1 minute and 43.3 seconds behind Johaug to win silver. She had already become the first American woman to win an individual cross-country medal when she took bronze in the sprint earlier in the Beijing Games.

Finland’s Kerttu Niskanen won bronze 2 minutes and 33.3 seconds back.

Curling – Women’s:

Eve Muirhead led Britain to the Olympic women’s curling gold medal — the first for the sport’s homeland since 2002 — with a record-setting 10-3 victory over Japan.

One day after the British men took silver, losing to Sweden in the final, the women picked up two points in the first end and controlled the scoreboard from there. They essentially clinched it in the seventh after Japanese skip Satsuki Fujisawa failed to keep her last stone in the scoring area.

Japan could only manage one point in the eighth. When Muirhead tallied two in the ninth, Fujisawa slid over to bump fists and concede. Another roar arose from the crowd, which included the men’s silver medalists.

The Swedish women won bronze on Saturday night, beating Switzerland.

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Hockey – Men’s:

Hannes Bjorninen scored the go-ahead goal 31 seconds into the third period and Finland claimed its first Olympic men’s hockey gold medal with a 2-1 win over the Russian Olympic Committee on the final day of the Beijing Games.

Ville Pokka also scored and Harri Sateri stopped 16 shots as Finland rallied from a 1-0 first-period deficit. The Finns’ best finishes in 17 previous Olympic appearances were silver medals at the 1988 Calgary Games and 2006 Torino Games. This time the ROC settled for silver. Mikhail Grigorenko scored for them.

Slovakia beat Sweden earlier to win bronze.