How I Made It to the Beijing Olympics Alan BlinderReporting on the Olympic Games ⛷ China is hosting this year’s Winter Olympics in a bubble. For me, the bubble formed not in Beijing — but more than 5,000 miles away, at Charles de Gaulle Airport, outside of Paris. Here’s what my trip looked like → NYT
By this time next week, the Winter Olympics will be well underway in Beijing. Like the Summer Olympics in Tokyo last year, the global gathering of athletes will occur during a global pandemic. But China’s first experience hosting the Winter Games comes when Canada’s relationship with the country is at a low amid an array of troubling human rights issues. My colleagues Steven Lee Myers, Keith Bradsher and Tariq Panja have provided an extensive and provocative look at how China was selected as the host of the Games despite its…
At the bottom of the slope where snowboarders will compete in the 2022 Beijing Olympics, an electronic sign cycles through ads for companies like Samsung and Audi. Coca-Cola’s cans are adorned with Olympic rings. Procter & Gamble has opened a beauty salon in the Olympic Village. Visa is the event’s official credit card. President Biden and a handful of other Western leaders may have declared a “diplomatic boycott” of the Winter Games, which begin next week, but some of the world’s most famous brands will still be there. The prominence…
A supervisor in Germany’s Olympic delegation has tested positive for the coronavirus within the closed loop in Beijing, the German Olympic Sports Confederation said on Thursday, confirming one of the first cases connected to an athletic team within the bubblelike environment meant to shield participants from the rest of the world. The positive case was identified on Sunday after a P.C.R. test administered in Zhangjiakou, where many of the snow events will take place about 100 miles northwest of Beijing, the confederation said. The supervisor is asymptomatic and is currently…
The American ski racer Breezy Johnson, a top contender for a gold medal at next month’s Beijing Olympics in the women’s downhill, said on Monday that she would not compete in the Games because of torn right knee cartilage she sustained in the second of two high-speed training crashes this month. Saying she was heartbroken, Johnson conceded that she contemplated trying to race despite the condition of her injured knee. “But the doctors told me I could do a lot more damage,” Johnson said in a telephone interview from Germany.…
Good morning. We’re covering reports of Russia’s positioning in Ukraine, Beijing’s hard-line Olympic strategy and miserable conditions at a Chinese tire factory in Serbia. Britain accuses Russia of Ukraine plot The British government said that the Kremlin appeared to be developing plans to install a pro-Moscow leader in Ukraine. The highly unusual public statement, backed by U.S. officials, comes at a pivotal moment in high-stakes negotiations. Moscow has deployed more than 100,000 troops on Ukraine’s borders that could, according to American officials, attack anytime. According to the assessment, Russian planners…
The Olympic torch’s public journey to the opening ceremony of the Winter Games will be much more lonely and with much less fanfare. The torch relay, usually global and lasting for months, will be just three days, mostly local, and open only to select members of the public, according to organizers of the Beijing Olympics. “This torch relay will always prioritize safety,” Yang Haibin, an official from the organizing committee, said at a news briefing on Friday. The route will feature stops at the Great Wall, the Summer Palace, and…
In preparation for the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, Japan worked to develop a contact tracing app that would track foreign visitors, but concerns quickly mounted over bugs in the software and whether all visitors would own smartphones on which to install the app. The Citizen Lab report said MY2022 failed to confirm a unique encryption signature with the server where it was transferring data. In effect, that meant hackers could intercept the data without Chinese officials necessarily knowing. Other parts of the app, like its built-in messaging service, failed to encrypt…
China had already barred foreign spectators from attending the Winter Games that begin in Beijing in less than a month. On Monday, it announced that most Chinese people won’t be able to attend either. Citing the evolving threat from the coronavirus pandemic, the Beijing 2022 organizing committee announced that it was ending ticket sales to the events “to ensure the safety of all participants and spectators.” The decision came less than two days after health authorities reported Beijing’s first case of the Omicron variant and ordered an immediate lockdown and…
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…