The opening ceremony of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics kicked off on Friday night, culminating preparations that were beset by the COVID-19 pandemic and criticism over human rights in China that led several countries to mount a diplomatic boycott.
It began shortly after President Xi Jinping and International Olympic Committee Chairman Thomas Bach entered the iconic Bird’s Nest stadium, its rim bedecked by the flags of the 91 competing nations and regions.
Directed by Zhang Yimou, reprising his role from Beijing’s 2008 Summer Games triumph, the event was to feature 3,000 performers on a stage comprised of 11,600 square metres of high-definition LED screen resembling an ice surface.
All of the performers are ordinary people from Beijing and nearby Hebei province, with “the Story of a Snowflake” its central thread.
The show, with temperatures of about -4C (25F) at the start, was set to be about half as long as the four-hour marathon in 2008, also at the Bird’s Nest.
The crowd itself was pared down, with organisers deciding last month not to sell tickets to Olympic events to curtail the spread of COVID-19. A “closed loop” separates competitors and other personnel from the Chinese public throughout the Olympics.
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