Olympics 2022: China succeeds in its Winter Games and makes people forget the controversies

The Chinese-American skier Eileen Gu is the outstanding figure of these Winter Olympics in Beijing on the Chinese side.

AP - Alessandra Tarantino

Text by: RFI Follow

1 min

End clap for the Winter Olympics in China this Sunday.

After two weeks of competition, the organizers and the Chinese regime can breathe: no major scandal has been identified and criticism has become rare during the fortnight.

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Chinese President Xi Jinping had said that the number of medals won by the Chinese delegation did not matter.

It was before the opening of the Olympic Games at a time when there was more talk of a diplomatic boycott than of the athletes' future performances. 

But two weeks after the opening ceremony, the acrobatics of

and the bonhomie of the mascot Bing Dwen Dwen have almost made people forget the controversies. 

The two headliners of these Beijing Olympics dominated the debates, blessed bread for the regime which did not skimp on efforts to promote the little panda and the new princess of Chinese sport.

China also broke its record for medals in an edition with fifteen podiums, including nine titles, to overtake the great American rival (25 medals but only 8 in gold) in the medal table.

The Covid-19 epidemic under control

In the eyes of the regime, one last parameter had to be taken into account to measure the success of these Olympiads: controlling the coronavirus epidemic and the omicron variant. 

It's done with less than 500 cases identified in the health bubble, a sign of the effectiveness of Chinese measures which validates the strategy of the zero-covid policy still and still applied by China.

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: JO-2022: China is ready, the Covid plays spoilsport 

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• China

• Olympic Games 2022

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