Category Archives: Winter Olympics Beijing 2022

The Kamila Valieva case shows yet again that the IOC is betraying teen athletes

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This rotten organisation stood by while the 15-year-old skater and her Olympic dreams were publicly crushed

A fish rots from the head. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) is the head of the Olympic movement, and it is rotten to the core. Long ago, this vile organisation abandoned its stated principles of “excellence, friendship and respect” to embrace greed, corruption and abuse.

For many, the enduring image of Bejing 2022 will not be one of Olympic glory, but the tragic and bizarre spectacle attending the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) and 15-year-old figure skater Kamila Valieva. Once again, the Russians got caught cheating: Valieva tested positive for a banned medication. Still the IOC allowed her to compete, and then stood by while this child and her Olympic dreams were publicly crushed. After her performance collapsed, her despicable coach humiliated her, badgering her about on-ice failures as Valieva left the rink.

Sarah Klein is a civil attorney and advocate for survivors of sexual abuse

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Journalists’ group ‘dismayed’ by treatment at Beijing Winter Olympics

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Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China says reporters tailed and manhandled by security despite assurances from Games officials

Reporting conditions for journalists covering the Beijing Winter Olympics fell short of international standards despite assurances from the International Olympic Committee (IOC), the Foreign Correspondents’ Club (FCCC) of China has said.

The club said it was “dismayed” that at a time when global attention was trained on China more than ever the government and Olympic officials still failed to uphold their own rules on accredited foreign media. Instead “government interference occurred regularly during the Games”, both inside and outside venues, when journalists tried to interview athletes and local residents.

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How citizenship row clouded Eileen Gu’s Olympics

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Success of Chinese American skier should have been a positive story but geopolitics got in the way

Until recently, the US-born freestyle skier Eileen Gu – or Gu Ailing as she is known in China – was one of the rising numbers of Chinese Americans straddling the two countries. They are comfortable operating between the two cultures and systems, taking pride in their heritage as well as their upbringing.

Gu, now 18, was born in San Francisco to an American father and a Chinese mother. She’s a big fan of Chinese dumplings and, every summer, she flew back to Beijing to attend cram school for mathematics. “When I’m in China, I’m Chinese and when I go to America, I’m American,” she once said.

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Beijing 2022 organisers claim stories of Xinjiang human rights abuses are ‘lies’

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  • Winter Olympics plunged into further controversy
  • Spokesperson Yan Jiarong also insists Taiwan is part of China

The Winter Olympics have been plunged into further controversy after Beijing 2022 spokesperson Yan Jiarong dismissed human rights violations among the Uyghur Muslim population as “lies” and insisted Taiwan was part of China.

Yan, a former member of the Chinese delegation to the UN general assembly, referred to “so-called forced labour” in Xinjiang in response to one question, before saying China was against the “politicising of sports”.

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Valieva team claim positive test may be due to grandfather’s heart medication

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  • Legal team claim contaminated glass of water could be to blame
  • Russian skater ‘emotionally fatigued’ ahead of individual event

Kamila Valieva’s legal team has claimed that her positive drugs test may have come from a contaminated glass of water that contained traces of her grandfather’s heart medication.

Speaking after the daily media briefing in Beijing, International Olympic Committee member Denis Oswald confirmed the 15-year-old Russian’s explanation for her positive test for the banned angina drug trimetazidine was “contamination which happened with a product her grandfather was taking”.

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Kamila Valieva: Cas clearance for skater sparks anger at Winter Olympics

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  • Cas clears 15-year-old to compete in individual event
  • Russian had tested positive for a banned angina drug

The Beijing Winter Games descended into acrimony and farce on Monday after the 15-year-old Russian skater Kamila Valieva was cleared to compete again despite a positive doping test hanging over her head.

In a highly anticipated ruling, the court of arbitration for sport said there were “exceptional circumstances” surrounding Valieva’s case, and that banning her while it was ongoing “would cause her irreparable harm”.

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Winter Olympics day nine: short track speed skating, biathlon and more – live!

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Ice hockey: Slovakia up 3-1 now over Latvia, with three goalscorers.

And of course, make sure to check out our picture gallery from day eight. Some great shots as usual.

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Hanbok at Beijing Winter Olympics opening sparks South Korean anger

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Appearance of traditional dress denounced as further attempt by China to appropriate Korean culture

China and South Korea have become embroiled in a cultural appropriation row after a woman appeared at the opening ceremony of the Beijing winter Olympics wearing traditional Korean dress.

The Chinese embassy in Seoul defended the decision to include a participant wearing hanbok, describing her as a representative of the country’s dozens of ethnic groups.

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Beijing Winter Olympics 2022 day three: curling semi-finals, speed skating and more – live!

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Here’s a line from the US figure skating team. For context, Zhou is the only skater to have beaten the juggernaut that is Nathan Chen in the last four years.

“As part of yesterday’s regular COVID-19 screening, Vincent Zhou tested positive. Under the guidance of the USOPC medical staff, Zhou is undergoing additional testing to confirm his status. If the results are negative, Zhou will be able to compete in the men’s short program, which begins Tuesday. At this time, we ask you respect his privacy as we await the results.”

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Peng Shuai says Weibo post sparked ‘enormous misunderstanding’

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Tennis star gave an interview to French sports daily L’Équipe on the sidelines of the Winter Olympics in Beijing, accompanied by a Chinese official

Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai has given her first interview to an independent media organisation since she alleged on Weibo that a senior Chinese official had coerced her into sex, saying it was an “enormous misunderstanding”.

The interview with French sports daily L’Équipe came as the International Olympic Committee said it wasn’t up to them or anyone else “to judge, in one way or another, her position”.

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Truss says Falklands part of ‘British family’ after China backs Argentina

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Accord signed by Alberto Fernández and Xi Jinping at Winter Olympics also supports Chinese claim to Taiwan

Liz Truss has defended the Falklands as “part of the British family” after China backed Argentina’s claim over the South American islands.

The foreign secretary tweeted that “China must respect the Falklands’ sovereignty” after the Argentinian president, Alberto Fernández, met China’s President Xi on the fringes of the Beijing Winter Olympics.

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‘I have no more tears’: Beijing’s Winter Olympics hit by athlete complaints

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  • Swedish team suggest schedule needs altering due to cold
  • Isolation issues continue; Germany bemoan lack of hot food

On the eve of the Winter Olympics, China promised the world a “streamlined, safe and most splendid” Games. But just two days into the event organisers are facing a litany of complaints from athletes and countries on multiple fronts.

The Swedes have suggested that the conditions in the mountains are perilously cold. A Polish skater says she was living in fear in a Beijing isolation ward and has “cried until I have no more tears”. The Finns have claimed an ice hockey player is being kept in Covid quarantine for no reason. And the Germans? They are frustrated that there is no hot food at the downhill skiing.

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UN’s Guterres says he expects China to let rights chief pay ‘credible’ visit to Xinjiang

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Secretary general says he expects Xi Jinping to allow ‘credible’ visit to troubled region during meeting on Winter Olympics sidelines

UN secretary general Antonio Guterres told leaders in Beijing he expects them to allow UN human rights chief Michelle Bachelet to make a “credible” visit to China including a stop in the Xinjiang region, his spokesman said on Saturday.

Guterres met with Chinese president Xi Jinping and foreign minister Wang Yi on the sidelines of the Winter Olympics, according to a readout of their talks.

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Winter Olympics day one: curling, ice hockey, freestyle skiing and more – live!

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Aussie Jakara Anthony Goes Top

The Victorian unleashes a scintillating run to go top in qualifying for the Women’s Moguls. She even pipped the peerless Frenchwoman Perrine Laffont, a former gold medallist. Commentary, rather curiously, is being provided by former cricketer Dirk Nannes.

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Trial of protesters against Beijing Olympics postponed in Greece

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Lawyers say delay in case against three defendants including a Briton is to avoid embarrassing China

The trial in Greece of activists who protested against Beijing holding the Winter Olympics has been postponed amid accusations that proceedings were delayed to avoid embarrassing China on the eve of the Games.

The highly anticipated hearing had been due to take place on Thursday in the town of Pyrgos, with human rights lawyers travelling from the UK and Athens to attend. The activists, who included a Briton, an American and a Tibetan-Canadian, were arrested when they briefly disrupted the Olympic flame lighting ceremony in October.

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Taiwan condemns ‘contemptible’ China-Russia partnership on eve of Olympics

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Taipei calls ‘no limits’ agreement announced after Xi-Putin summit an insult to the Olympic spirit

Taiwan has condemned as “contemptible” the timing of China and Russia’s “no limits” partnership at the start of the Winter Olympics, saying the Chinese government was bringing shame to the spirit of the Games.

China and Russia, at a meeting of their leaders hours before the Winter Olympics officially opened, backed each other over standoffs on Ukraine and Taiwan with a promise to collaborate more against the west.

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Xi and Putin urge Nato to rule out expansion as Ukraine tensions rise

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Chinese and Russian leaders call on west to abandon ‘cold war’ approach at pre-Olympic meeting

China’s Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin of Russia have signed a joint statement calling on the west to “abandon the ideologised approaches of the cold war”, as the two leaders showcased their warming relationship in Beijing at the start of the Winter Olympics.

The politicans also said the bonds between the two countries had “no limits”. “[T]here are no ‘forbidden’ areas of cooperation’,” they declared.

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Winter Olympics 2022: 10 things to look out for in Beijing

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Jamaica return to the bobsleigh after 24 years, Haiti and Saudi Arabia make debuts, while GB aim for curling glory

Jamaica will enter a four-man bobsleigh team in the Olympics for the first time in 24 years after nicking the final qualifying spot, offering a feelgood reboot for the island nation whose debut at the 1988 Calgary Games inspired the Disney film Cool Runnings. Just making it to Beijing might seem like accomplishment enough for Shanwayne Stephens, the team’s 31-year-old pilot and Royal Air Force lance corporal who emigrated to Great Britain with his family in 2002: certainly after improvised training methods at the height of the pandemic that included pushing his girlfriend’s Mini Cooper around the streets of Peterborough. But having touched down in China after undergoing their final preparations at the University of Bath, his goal is plain. “It’s got to be medalling,” Stephens says. “It’s everybody’s dream, it’s what we’re here to do. So why not aim high?” BAG

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Xi-Putin summit: Russia inches closer to China as ‘new cold war’ looms

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Fifty years after Nixon and Mao’s historic handshake, the geopolitical world order is again being reshaped

When the leaders of China and Russia meet in Beijing this Friday shortly before the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics, observers of the bilateral relationship will be looking for insights into how this 21st century quasi-alliance is reshaping the postwar world order.

It was 50 years ago this month, on 21 February 1972, that the historic handshake between Richard Nixon and Mao Zedong changed the geometry of the cold war. Historians called the visit “the week that changed the world”. It later influenced Washington’s subsequent movement towards détente with Moscow.

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‘Nobody can say anything’: China cracks down on dissent ahead of Olympics

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Communist party tightens grip on critics to preserve ‘perfect’ image of Winter Games

A chill is blowing through Chinese civil society as activists, journalists and academics report receiving police warnings and censorship of their social media platforms in recent weeks as Beijing prepares to host the Winter Olympics beginning on Friday.

In mid-January, the Beijing-based human rights activist Hu Jia said in a tweet that China’s state security apparatus was summoning activists around the country to question them and warn them to stay silent.

The author Zhang Yihe and prominent journalist Gao Yu said they had lost some or all of their access to WeChat, China’s dominant social media platform. Academics including Guo Yuhua, the outspoken Tsinghua University sociologist, and He Weifang, the Peking University law professor, reported similar issues.

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