Tag: Beijing (China)

Nathan Chen Isn’t Perfect but Wins U.S. Skating Championship

Chin@Strategy

NASHVILLE — Nathan Chen, one of the most successful figure skaters in U.S. history, skated in his own stratosphere on Sunday at the U.S. national championships. Five powerful quadruple jumps that launched him high above the ice. Spins as precise as a gyroscope’s. Footwork that flowed like a fast-moving river. He fell twice — once on a quad jump early in his free skate and again during a foot-tapping choreographed sequence to an Elton John medley — but it did not matter a bit. After his second fall, Chen playfully…

As U.S. Figure Skaters Test Positive, New Worries for Winter Olympics

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U.S. Figure Skating on Saturday announced the women’s team heading to Beijing for the Winter Olympics next month. It will include a top-ranked competitor who withdrew from the national championships this week in Nashville after a positive coronavirus test, a stark reminder of a resurgent pandemic still capable of disrupting sports events and lifelong dreams. “Things happen unfortunately, but it is what it is,” Alysa Liu wrote on social media after her withdrawal on Friday. A strong showing this past season on the international circuit, in spite of having to…

Skier Mikaela Shiffrin is Back on Top and Headed to the Olympics

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Thursday afternoon, roughly one month from the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony, Mikaela Shiffrin was still a bit out of breath from a slalom training session in Austria. But it felt good, and not just because Shiffrin, an eight-time Olympic and world champion, is once again atop the Alpine World Cup overall standings. “I finally feel like myself again,” she said in a phone interview. Ten weeks ago, as she sat in the kitchen of her Colorado home, Shiffrin all but predicted her comeback after nearly two years mourning the accidental…

North Korea Says It Will Skip Beijing Olympics Because of the Pandemic

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SEOUL — North Korea said on Friday that it would not participate in the Beijing Winter Olympics because of the coronavirus pandemic and moves by “hostile forces.” Its no-show at the Beijing ​Games would deprive South Korea of a rare opportunity to establish official contact with the ​North. Officials from the South had hoped that the ​Olympics would provide a venue for​ official delegates from both Koreas to meet to discuss issues beyond sports. In a letter hand-delivered on Wednesday to China by the North’s ambassador, the country’s Olympic Committee…

As Olympics Near, China Tightens Rules and Athletes Invent Their Own

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The exemption, however, comes with a stringent requirement that foreigners not leave a “closed loop” of hotels and sports venues, linked by special buses and trains. “We must never go outside the closed loop, let alone reach the city level — this is our bottom line,” said Huang Chun, deputy director of the Olympic organizing committee’s Office of Epidemic Prevention and Control. For those outside China, getting to the Olympics in the first place remained the most urgent goal. Many are now taking proactive measures to keep the virus at…

China tells Winter Olympic spectators to clap, not cheer, for athletes, and Xi’an, a major city, locks down.

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ZHANGJIAKOU, China — Spectators at the Winter Olympics next February should clap but not shout in support of athletes. Waiters, cleaners and other support staff will not be allowed to leave Olympic venues to visit their families. And any Olympic participants leaving the vicinity for the rest of China will be required to spend at least one week in quarantine, followed by at least two weeks of isolation at home. As the Omicron variant spreads rapidly around the globe, China is taking elaborate precautions to prevent the coronavirus from reaching…

Hong Kong’s Election Is Really a Selection

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The signs and messages are everywhere: “Cast a vote for Hong Kong and yourself.” Candidates’ faces cover the pavement and walls from the city center to stalls in the wet markets on its outskirts. Government-sponsored billboards calling to “improve electoral system, ensure patriots administering Hong Kong” abound. Hong Kong and Chinese government officials have for weeks been urging the public to vote in this weekend’s legislative election. But this is not a typical free and fair election: It’s a selection process, thanks to an electoral overhaul with no meaningful participation…

How Hong Kong’s ‘Patriots Only’ Elections Bolster Beijing’s Grip

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Only a few of all the candidates running this year have described themselves as “pro-democracy,” and they share one thing in common: They observe Beijing’s red lines. They have avoided the sort of political stances that could lead to their disqualification or even imprisonment, such as calling for independence for Hong Kong or foreign sanctions against Hong Kong officials. In Hong Kong’s new electoral landscape, the absence of the mainstream opposition has resulted in an odd political twist: Such outside candidates are being given some help by Beijing’s representatives and…

Chloe Kim Is Grown Up and Ready for the Olympic Spotlight

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She repeated the words of the Instagram insult. She would not say who wrote them. “It’s definitely one of those things that I wish I didn’t see, but I’m also grateful,” Kim said. “If I didn’t see it, I would have been, like, ‘Oh, cool, we’re still all good.’ It’s helpful for me to know. It definitely made me put my guard up a little more, which I think is OK. You can’t trust anyone.” ‘Chloe time’ The front entry of Kim’s new house was a pileup of shoes, mostly…

‘Beijing Spring’ Review: The Politics of Aesthetics

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Can art effect real change in the world? To this ever-urgent question, “Beijing Spring” — a new documentary about the titular movement for democratic expression that exploded in the wake of the Cultural Revolution in China — responds with a resounding yes. Directed by Andy Cohen with Gaylen Ross, the film focuses on the Stars Art Group, a collective of self-taught practitioners who seized on the tumult after Mao Zedong’s death in 1976 and deployed their art like Molotov cocktails. They circulated their paintings and literature via underground magazines; papered…