The 2022 Winter Games ended on Sunday, to cheers from China. But between disappointment on the atmosphere and relief on the effectiveness of the health bubble, these Olympics sound like mixed according to the points of view.
End of the Beijing Winter Games. Opened on February 4, the event lowered its curtain this Sunday. In the meantime, he has distributed 109 gold medals, a record for a winter edition. China, long seen as a supporting role in ice and snow sports, won nine, for a total of fifteen places on the podium. An almost exceptional success rate. She is third in the medal standings, behind Norway and Germany. The United States follows one rank behind. An unlikely hierarchy, even counting on home advantage. Sportingly, the Chinese have succeeded in their bet.
What will we remember from these Beijing Games, the second consecutive to wrap their decor under a health bubble? From a Chinese point of view, excellence. Not less. The chairman of the organizing committee, Cai Qi, distributed the praise and the good points on Sunday morning, even before the last podiums. “The Beijing 2022 Games were fantastic, extraordinary and excellent”, listed the Chinese in a press conference. Then he explained in a confidential tone that the President, Xi Jinping, had traveled to the competition sites five times. “He gave his instructions”, Cai Qi insisted. Which ones? Who knows.
Closed circuit
The Chinese cry wonders. It was expected. For the others, on the other hand, the impression remains more mixed. The Beijing Games alternated between good and bad, prowess and failure, without ever really leaning one way or the other. Let’s be clear: no one was expecting a celebration of Olympism in joy and joy. No disappointment, then. But many predicted the worst for an event without a foreign audience, organized in a vacuum. It didn’t happen.
What worked. The health bubble, at the top of the list. Wanting to contain the virus despite the entry into the country of delegations from 91 nations, the Chinese locked up the Games and their accredited members in a closed circuit that looked like a prison. But the result was spectacular. At the last tally, Sunday, nearly 1.8 million tests have been carried out since January 24, for only 437 positive cases, of which 185 concerned athletes or team officials. Positivity rate: 0.002%. Bluffing. “Beijing has been the safest place in the world,” said Thomas Bach, President of the International Olympic Committee. The Chinese congratulated themselves.
Then the volunteers. A merry army of 18,194 young Chinese dressed in blue or red, depending on their position in the hierarchy of the organizing committee. For the most part, they were recruited from Beijing universities. Nearly 93% of them were under 35 years old. Often bilingual, helpful to the point of dedication, able to find answers to most questions in their smartphone applications, they are of the general opinion “the ray of sunshine” of these Games.
Less brilliant reality
Competition sites, finally. The Chinese have spent lavishly to provide athletes with a level of equipment rarely achieved at the Winter Games. Example: the curling rink. The organizers have transformed the “water cube” of the Beijing 2008 Summer Games, the pool for the swimming events, into an ice cube with the most beautiful effect. After several attempts, the maneuver to change the water into ice now takes them eighteen days. A concept of swimming pool-skating rink that China intends to extend to the rest of the country from next winter.
What didn’t work: transportation. The high-speed train built for the Winter Games, between Beijing and the clusters of Yanqing and Zhangjiakou, has won the admiration of Olympic passengers, all accredited. The image of a modern and technological China. But the succession of buses to reach the departure station, then the competition sites, revealed a less brilliant reality. A good three hours one way, sometimes more on the way back, from the capital to get to the downhill skiing site.
The atmosphere. The organizers had announced the presence of 150,000 spectators at the events. They were finally less than 98,000, all invited, mostly Chinese. The competitions have often reached heights of their kind, but the passion has never accompanied the athletes. In the end, a curious impression of the Winter Games disputed in a small committee, between oneself. Under a bubble, in every sense of the word.
