A glittering closing ceremony brought the curtain down on the first Winter Olympics to be hosted by China, with authorities claiming the Games a success after the nation bagged a record number of gold medals and the threat of Covid-19 was contained.
Celebrated film director Zhang Yimou orchestrated another visually dazzling spectacle for Sunday’s event in Beijing National Stadium, also known as the Bird’s Nest, returning with volunteers and special effects seen in an opening ceremony that drew criticism from the U.S. for its political overtones.
Chinese President Xi Jinping was seen standing next to International Olympic Committee chief Thomas Bach, wearing a red mask with the Olympics logo and waving to the audience in the packed stadium.
China won 15 medals, including nine gold, ranking third behind Norway and Germany, and one place ahead of the U.S. The host’s tally was helped by star skier Eileen Gu, who was born in America but chose to represent China. One of the highest-profile athletes at the Games, the Stanford-bound teenager won two golds and a silver.
While the Games attracted a huge number of television viewers domestically, they could still be the least-watched Olympics in the event’s history due to a drop off in the international audience.
Heading into an Olympics that Xi pledged would be "simple, safe and splendid,” one big question was how China was going to check the spread of Covid during the 16-day event. In line with a Covid Zero strategy that has kept the virus largely at bay, the government implemented a so-called closed-loop that kept athletes and other stakeholders away from the general population.
"There was no spread of the disease,” Cai Qi, president of the Beijing Organizing Committee, said at a briefing Sunday. Just over 500 people involved in the Games tested positive for Covid-19, many of which were detected prior to the opening ceremony.
Still, with so many athletes unable to compete or in isolation until shortly before their events, "these Olympics will be remembered as the Covid Games,” said Heather Dichter, an associate professor of sport management and history at De Montfort University in the U.K.
