Olympic athletes compete against the pandemic, climate change — and politics, of course | Editorial

The controversial two-week 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing officially began Friday morning with the Opening Ceremony airing on NBC. China put on its traditional, spectacular light and fireworks shows; snowflakes were the theme. Still, something is missing at these Olympics: public interest.

This year, due to the pandemic, the host country and its politics, which kept some delegations away, and climate change, which is expected to hamper some snow events, the usual magnitude of the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat feels smallish.

The Games of the Olympiad are muted and more about everything else than the best athletes in the world coming together and competing.

The athletes represent 91 countries, but the still-raging pandemic and political objections to China’s human-rights abuses led some nations to skip the world competitions. Beijing couldn’t be a less popular locale right now. China is one of the world’s most repressive regimes accused of numerous human rights violations, plus the pandemic began in China.

COVID-19 has made attendance limited in the stands and there is a required daily testing for athletes and support staff. No tickets were sold, but it appears the Chinese let some spectators into the Opening Ceremonies and Thursday night’s figure skating events.

And finally, melting snow, high winds, and the higher than usual winter temperatures have raised concerns for some skiing events.

There were no U.S. leaders in the stands at the Opening Ceremony. But the United States didn’t boycott the Games, as other countries did, over China’s state-sponsored campaign against its Uighur ethnic minority. China has displaced them to “re-education camps” and sentenced hundreds of thousands to prison terms.

There is also evidence that Uighurs are being used as forced labor and of women being forcibly sterilized. The word genocide has been used. Chinese President Xi Jinping denies it all and wants the world to mind its own business and not mention Taiwan, either.

Another darling at the Opening Ceremony was Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was in the stands large and in charge. He appeared to smirk as he saw the Ukrainian athletes parade into the hall. More than 100,000 Russian troops are currently at the Ukraine border, as NATO, led by the United States., tries to defuse the standoff.

And China wasted no time launching its political messaging by hypocritically choosing a member of the Uighur minority to light the Olympic cauldron.

In your face, world, Xi Jinping seemed to say. Expect more of that in the next two weeks.

And poor NBC Universal; it has turned every on-air personality into a cheerleader for this hobbled Olympics, but they promise “thousands of hours of coverage” on multiple platforms and channels. The Games are competing with the Super Bowl hype, which collide two Sundays from now.

“Aren’t you excited to be at the Olympics?” Kotb asked athlete after athlete in their red, white and blue Ralph Lauren outfits.

NBC finds itself in an unusual situation. For the first time ever at an Olympics, the network is not only using sports commentators but also political commentators who are translating for the American TV audience Chinese political symbolism.

Let these unusual Games begin.

This story was originally published February 4, 2022 at 11:44 AM.