The Olympic Winter Games will be held in Beijing from February 4 to 20.
In the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic, and with the spread of the Omicron variant all over the world, the atmosphere there is likely to be heavy.
We take stock of what awaits us in less than a month in China.
So far, everything is going (relatively) well. While the Winter Olympics kick off in 30 days in Beijing and the Omicron variant continues to make its own all over the world, to date we have not received the slightest email from the organizers suggesting that we could already put our accreditation at the bottom of the drawer and put an end to the event. Oh, there was this statement from Dick Pound, the member of the International Olympic Committee, among our colleagues at USA Today, who could not officially "dismiss" the specter of a cancellation or a new postponement, evoking a "very slim chance" that the event would go by the wayside, but it was more for the form than anything else.
No, except for another last-minute cataclysm, the Beijing Games will indeed take place from February 4 to 20.
It now remains to be seen under what conditions these Scared Olympics will take place, in a country that has literally cut itself off from the world since the virus appeared in Wuhan at the end of 2019. From what we know, the Chinese authorities are on the teeth, "in warrior mode", in the words of a European diplomat based in Beijing among our colleagues at La Croix, in order to limit the risks of the emergence of epidemic outbreaks during the Games.
Post-apocalyptic atmosphere and “zero Covid” strategy
To give you an overview of the atmosphere there, we asked the French short-track team, which had the opportunity to go and test the Olympic ice last October. "It was completely lunar, scary limit," says the Le Havre speed skater Sébastien Lepape. When I arrived at Beijing Airport, I was in a sci-fi movie. I said to myself "Where are we here ?!" Everything was empty, the only people we met were in antibacterial clothes, we had 3,000 tests to do. "
“It felt like we were in a ghost airport, it was an atmosphere of apocalypse. Our plane was the only one on the tarmac, in the halls there was dust everywhere as if it was abandoned. After four or five hours of proceedings, we were finally able to get out. Our bus was escorted by the police and, in the streets, it was the same, not a rat, a ghost town, ”says Tifany Huot-Marchand. "I think it will be worse, or at least as strict, during the Games," warns Lepape.
Anxious to be exemplary in the eyes of the world in the fight against the virus, Beijing and the IOC on Tuesday inaugurated the loop (totally) closed and strictly controlled 24 hours a day, enough to pass the health bubble of the Tokyo Olympics for a vulgar strainer for bacteria. If, in Japan, the promises of sanitary intransigence were sometimes shattered during the Games, there is little chance that China will let go. Witness the total quarantine of the city of Xi'an, the capital of Shaanxi province, and its 13 million inhabitants, last month.
“You could say that we have practically completed all the preparations.
Beijing is ready, ”said Zhao Weidong, communications manager of the organizing committee, while the last barriers were being installed to keep passers-by at a safe distance from the facilities.
To put it simply, the Chinese regime has decided to apply its national strategy of "zero Covid" (quarantines, confinements, screenings, tracing, mobile monitoring applications, etc.) at the level of Olympic venues.
And beware of the one where the one who would try to put a piece of the muzzle outside, under penalty of doing three laps in her underpants towards Roissy-Charles de Gaulle.
No risk does not exist
From athletes to delegations, including officials, journalists and volunteers, this whole clique will live in isolation from the world for nearly three weeks, with compulsory double vaccination (the booster dose is "strongly recommended" by the CIO), daily screening and wearing a mask in all circumstances. However, despite these drastic measures, the authorities know that zero risk does not exist. "There will certainly be infections and it is possible that a small-scale source of contamination will break out," Huang Chun, the official responsible for controlling the spread of the virus during the Games, warned a few days ago. In this case, people who test positive will be immediately placed in quarantine,while those showing the slightest symptoms will be sent to hospitals in Beijing and Zhangjiakou, the site where the skiing events will take place.
Unlike the Summer Games in Tokyo, however, these Winter Olympics should not take place behind closed doors. If foreign tourists have been asked to stay at home, the Chinese should have the right to partially fill the stands without any gauge having yet been officially announced by the authorities. But don't imagine yourself witnessing goofy atmospheres. To give you an idea of the mess, in the “playbook” - a kind of practical guide - provided to the media in recent weeks, we are strictly forbidden to “shout” or… “sing” on the Olympic venues.
A blow for the choir of the sports department of
20 Minutes
which had planned several performances ... In short, if we add to this the already heavy atmosphere around the issue of Human Rights and the various diplomatic boycotts announced by many countries (including France is not part of it), we tell ourselves that we really risk attending a Games that are truly unlike any other.
"This is the price to pay for them to take place", relativizes our French short-tracker.
It's all about the glass that is half empty or half full.
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China
Omicron variant
Sport
Olympic Games
Covid 19
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