Winter is coming
The Game of Thrones of sports changes kingdom.
But it does not move from Asia.
In reality, it only travels 3,000 kilometers to the west.
From friendly and democratic Japan to totalitarian China.
The strangest Olympic Games ever held have come to an end.
Next stop, before Paris 2024, it is Beijing's turn to take the baton with its
Winter Games
in February 2022.
Beijing wants to do what Tokyo failed: celebrate the first big party of the post-pandemic era.
That translates into a crowded sports show with no movement restrictions.
Just the opposite of what Tokyo 2020 has been.
China wants a Games in the old normality.
At least something that looks pretty close.
Because the Asian giant has closed its borders to foreigners since March of last year.
And he does not plan to open them next February.
Surely, if the new outbreaks that are hitting the country now give a break, there will only be a local audience in the stands.
They will all be Chinese, but there will be many.
That there is full capacity and that it looks good on television, the organization will take care of it.
What is not yet clear is whether the athletes, members of the federations and the Olympic committees of each participating country, will have to keep some kind of quarantine when entering China.
Right now, to enter the Asian country you have to spend four weeks in a hotel room.
They are reduced to three if the traveler has a house in China, since the last week of confinement could be done at home.
This strict requirement is now being met by all nationals and foreigners who enter the Asian country.
It does not matter if an ambassador, a head of state or WHO researchers arrive to decipher the origin of the pandemic.
There are no exceptions in the second world power
, which maintains its Covid Zero policy.
There are less than six months until Beijing 2022 opens its doors on February 4.
"All the facilities are almost ready," organizers said in a recent statement.
As detailed by the EFE Agency after a visit to the facilities, 3,000 athletes will compete in 109 modalities in Beijing, seven of them new.
There will be 12 ice and snow venues
, spread across Beijing and the mountains of neighboring Hebei province, for skating, skiing or snowboarding.
Several Chinese officials have been at the Tokyo Games to monitor the effectiveness of security measures during the pandemic.
This time, as requested by
Thomas Bach
, president of the International Olympic Committee, it is expected that there will be no delays in holding the February competitions, regardless of the evolution of the pandemic.
But in Beijing it is not only worrying that there will be a rebound in infections from the Delta variant before its Games.
Around the event, a choir has been around for months calling for a boycott.
It has a lot to do with China being a regime without freedom of expression that constantly violates human rights.
Demonstration in which human rights activists call for a boycott of the Beijing Winter Games.
In June, there were protests at once in 50 cities around the world.
They used the hashtag
# NoBeijing2022
to call for a boycott.
Representatives from Tibet, the Uighur Muslim minority, Hong Kong, Taiwan and southern Mongolia tried to pressure the International Olympic Committee (IOC) with demonstrations outside China to change the venue for the Winter Games.
The pressure that human rights organizations are also putting on the IOC, athletes, sponsors and sports federations is increasing.
Human rights groups and nations like the United States, Britain and Germany have accused China of crimes against the Uighur minority, even calling the crackdown in Beijing genocide.
"If the Games continue, Beijing gets the international seal of approval for what they are doing," says
Lhadon Tethong
of the Tibet Institute of Action.
"Is it okay to organize an international goodwill sporting event like the Olympics while the host nation commits genocide just beyond the stands?" Asks Tethong, who claims to have met with members of the IOC, an institution that repeats a and again that it is "neutral" and that it always stays "out of politics."
Although the defense of human rights by the organization is enshrined in its statutes within the Olympic Charter.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
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