BEIJING. Beijing, the city of the two Olympics, entrusts the baton to Milan-Cortina 2026 and takes leave after record-breaking Winter Games, the anti-Covid bubble, the birth or fall of new heroes and heroines, and the shadow of doping, but with the biggest winner on and off the slopes it could be China. The Dragon shrugged off a US-led diplomatic boycott in the name of human rights violations, made a new alliance with Russia with President Vladimir Putin catapulted into the opening ceremony to lay the foundations for a new geopolitical order, and finished in third place for golds won (9 out of 15 total medals), behind Germany (12) and Norway (16), but surpassing the United States (8) which are still aiming for the team figure skating competition, hoping in the disqualification of the Russian team for the affair of the 15-year-old Kamila Valieva, positive for prohibited substances.
With new accusations, given the post-Sochi recidivism, of doping against Moscow. But compared to the China of the 2008 Summer Games eager to open up with confidence to the outside world and to participate in global events, that of the 2022 Winter Games presented itself as a suspicious world power, also closed for the pandemic, with a furrow with the more marked West and also allowing himself to warn on the eve of the opening that there would be little tolerance for the criticisms of foreign athletes.
In 2008, Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao, shared the spotlight with the then US president at George W. Bush and numerous other democratically elected leaders. This in addition to Putin, the scene was taken by Arab leaders and leaders of the former Soviet Central Asian republics. The Olympics unique of its kind in times of pandemic, this is the result, for an edition “simple, safe, splendid, together for a shared future”, President Xi Jinping had assured, keeping the promise to keep Covid under control (with just over 500 cases ascertained since January 4) thanks to the system of watertight bubbles (mirrors of the ‘zero tolerance at Covid desired by the communist leadership) which withstood the shock wave of over 20,000 visitors, reducing spectators to a minimum present at the competitions and using 60,000 volunteers and personnel of various types in the mega organization.
China still used sport to solidify its position as a global superpower, with an international perception in the West even more precarious than it was before the Olympics. But it doesn’t matter, among its champions were the freestyle skier Eileen Gu, the teenager fluent in Mandarin born in Sna Francisco, snatched from the USA to compete for China: a snow princess capable of winning two golds and a silver . In contrast to the fall of the American Mikaela Shiffrin, the ‘queen of snow, who arrived in Beijing with the ambition of 5 gold and left empty-handed. In the end, Xi’s bet was won: plants converted in Beijing or built into thin air, excavating mountain sides to build ski slopes covered with artificial snow with Italian technology with low environmental impact, with the conviction of a strong mobilization of the beyond. 300 million Chinese who would be interested in winter sports and its tourism.
Among the commercials of the Games, the gift of the collection of Olympic badges from the Chinese couple to the US one of mixed sword curling and the hugs between the Ukrainian Abramenko and the Russian Burov (silver and bronze) on big air skis, despite at the border the winds of war blow between the two countries. The baton passes to Milan-Cortina 2026: the Olympic flag has been entrusted to the mayors Giuseppe Sala and Gianpietro Ghedina and will land at Malpensa in a few hours. The president of Coni Giovanni Malagò, who spoke of “organization of compliments” to China having also experienced the rigid isolation of Covid hotels, promised in four years an edition that will recover “the soul, the atmosphere. On this we will make a difference ». (HANDLE).