At Beijing’s airport, an employee passes a poster of Olympic mascot Bing Dwen Dwen, a panda, and his Paralympic counterpart Shuey Rhon Rhon, a Chinese lantern. The Beijing Winter Olympics begin on Feb. 4, and the Paralympics follow on March 4.KIRILL KUDRYAVTSEV/AFP via Getty Images
Dressed in down jackets and N95 face masks, the crowd of some 500 volunteers and staff packed into a courtyard in Yanqing, a suburb north of Beijing, as the Olympic Village opened. Raising their fists in the air, they chanted: “Rest assured, my Party, I am here for the Winter Olympics!”
Elsewhere across the capital the slogan “together for a shared future” is ubiquitous, as are the cartoon faces of Bing Dwen Dwen and Shuey Rhon Rhon, the Olympic and Paralympic mascots. Tight security is noticeable, with soldiers standing guard outside the main subway stations.
China is going all out for the Winter Games, which open on Feb. 4 with a ceremony at the Bird’s Nest, the stadium made iconic by the 2008 Summer Games. Those Olympics were a huge success for China, proof for many of the soft-power value of playing host to such mega events.
In his New Year’s address for 2022, Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed to recreate this triumph: “We will spare no effort to present a great Games to the world. The world is turning its eyes to China, and China is ready!”
But 2022 is not 2008, and the Winter Games are not the Summer Olympics. The gamble that China is taking this time around is far riskier, and the potential payoff much smaller. By the time it’s all over, the country’s leaders may be asking themselves whether it was all worth it.
IOC chief Thomas Bach announces the winning bid for 2022 in July of 2015; the same day, people celebrate outside Beijing’s Olympic stadium, the Bird’s Nest.Joshua Paul and Mark Schiefelbein/AP
During the bidding for the 2022 Games, Beijing presented itself as the “reliable and risk-free choice.” Never mind that the Chinese capital had no mountains and scant snow, or that winter sports were not popular in China. The country had pulled it off in 2008 and could do it again. Beijing organizers also vowed to do it at a far lower cost, and with less impact on the environment, amid concerns over the negative effects previous Games have had.
The budget for Beijing 2022 was set at US$3.9-billion, a fraction of Pyeongchang’s price tag of US$14-billion, and nowhere near the staggering US$51-billion Russia spent on the 2014 Sochi Games. (Budgets tend to overrun and the Beijing plan did not include all of the infrastructure investments, such as a new high-speed rail line linking Olympic sites, so the final cost may be much higher.)
Beijing organizers had not expected to win the 2022 Games – the bid was seen as a stage setter for 2026 – but after four other potential hosts dropped out, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) approved China’s bid over that of Almaty, Kazakhstan, by a narrow margin, making Beijing the first city to hold both the Summer and Winter Olympics.
“We know China will deliver on its promises,” IOC President Thomas Bach said in 2015, and the country has. New venues have been built in Yanqing and Zhangjiakou, connected to central Beijing by high-speed rail and covered with artificial snow pumped out by “green-powered” machines. (Artificial snow is becoming something of a Winter Olympics tradition amid a warming world climate: both Pyeongchang and Sochi relied on fake flakes.) Few were expecting this to be a challenge: Gian Franco Kasper, then-head of the International Ski Federation, was speaking for many observers in 2019 when he said “everything is easier in dictatorships.”
As Mr. Bach arrived in Beijing this week to meet with President Xi, he announced that “China is now a winter sports country, and this is the start of a new era for global winter sports.”
At top, an artificial snow machine pumps out powder outside one of the athletes’ villages in Beijing; at bottom, an ice maker sprays over an Olympic logo at the Yanqing National Sliding Centre.Kevin Frayer and Carl Court/Getty Images
But Beijing 2022 is facing challenges far greater than creating snow where it never falls. Eight countries, including Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom, have announced diplomatic boycotts of the Games, citing China’s woeful record on human rights, and particularly the treatment of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, which the Canadian Parliament has said amounts to “genocide.”
A diplomatic boycott means only that officials stay away, however. Large delegations of athletes are still competing, and these countries will still take part in the Parade of Nations that opens the Olympics.
Many countries have declined to sign on to the boycott – French President Emmanuel Macron dismissed it as “insignificant and symbolic” – but calls for countries to snub Beijing 2022 still damage the prestige of the event, as does the widespread media coverage of demonstrations over Xinjiang and Tibet, said Heather Dichter, an expert on the Olympics at De Montfort University in Britain.
The absence of world leaders may also have more of an effect than many people predict. “These mega events are a very important place for networking between the world’s elites,” said Susan Brownell, author of the 2008 book, Beijing’s Games: What the Olympics Mean to China. She noted that “if you look at Beijing 2008 or London 2012, more heads of state attended the opening ceremonies than even Davos.”
Since the beginning of the pandemic, Chinese President Xi Jinping, along with almost every other top leader other than Foreign Minister Wang Yi, has not left the country, attending global events such as the recent UN climate summit by video link. During this time, there has also been little reason for world leaders to visit China, so in-person diplomacy has been severely limited, and Beijing may come to view the Olympics as a missed opportunity on this front.
“Ultimately, we won’t know the full impact of this diplomatic boycott until some time after,” Dr. Dichter said.
COVID-19 precautions in Beijing: At the airport, top, workers in biohazard suits work at a credential validation desk; at a hotel included in the Olympic ‘bubble,’ bottom, a guard looks out a small window in the fence as a police officer passes by.Jae C. Hong/AP; Kevin Frayer/Getty Images
Beijing organizers may have priced in the risk of a boycott when they bid for the Games in 2015, but one factor they could not have predicted was the coronavirus.
The pandemic already caused the delay of the 2020SummerOlympics for a year, and when the Tokyo Games did eventually go ahead, it was amid spiking cases across Japan, angry calls for the event’s cancellation, and without spectators, for the most part.
With greater time to prepare, Beijing organizers clearly thought they could outdo Tokyo, promising a “closed loop management system” that would enable athletes and spectators to proceed as normal within a tightly policed bubble, despite some occasional contradictions. (Athletes have been advised to avoid hugging each other, for instance, but thousands of condoms have also been handed out.)
So far, their efforts seem to be working: while cases have been detected among the hundreds of people travelling to the Olympic Village, they have been swiftly detected and quarantined, and no cases involved athletes or team officials, organizers said.
With new outbreaks of the Delta and Omicron variants popping up in recent weeks – small by international standards, but a concern for almost COVID-free China – plans to allow local spectators inside the bubble have been dropped. (International fans were never invited.) Only a tiny number of hand-selected, highly monitored attendees will be able to watch events live, and they have been instructed not to cheer or shout.
“It’s a pity that I won’t be able to watch the Games this time,” said Chen Lin, a 38-year-old Beijinger who attended the 2008 Olympics. “Of course, we can still watch the Games … on TV and live streaming online, but it doesn’t provide as strong a sense of engagement as watching the Games on the spot.”
A commentator’s screen at the Wukesong hockey arena; security cameras outside the main media centre.Carl Court and Michael Heiman/Getty Images
For those outside China, media coverage may also be affected by the pandemic. Multiple broadcasters, including the CBC and NBC, are anchoring events primarily from their respective countries, with just a few reporters on the ground inside the bubble, while some media are staying home entirely. ESPN announced this month that it “will not be sending any news personnel to the Winter Olympics.”
“With the pandemic continuing to be a global threat, and with the COVID-related on-site restrictions in place for the Olympics that would make coverage very challenging, we felt that keeping our people home was the best decision for us,” ESPN executive editor Norby Williamson said.
The tight restrictions on journalists inside the bubble, while vital to China’s pandemic strategy, could have costs when it comes to soft power, diluting the amount of coverage of the country itself. While there were reports on Tibet and human rights in 2008, the Summer Games ultimately served as a global ad for China, something that is unlikely to play out this time around. Broadcasters have faced calls to drop the Games entirely, and NBC Olympics chief Molly Solomon has promised the network will not ignore the “geopolitical context” in its coverage.
This may result in a more sports-focused Olympics than ever before – something viewers may appreciate. But the hosts are not shelling out billions of dollars just to showcase curling or luge. And when it comes to soft power, China is facing an uphill battle: polling shows unfavourable views of the country are at, or near, historic highs in most advanced economies, and particularly in those countries where the Winter Olympics is a key focus.
According to Pew Research, more than 70 per cent of respondents from Germany, Canada, the United States and the Netherlands – all winter sports powerhouses – said they had an unfavourable view of China. In Sweden the figure was 80 per cent. Even if the Olympics do move the needle somewhat (and research suggests any 2008 bump was short lived, in any case), it’s unlikely they’ll be winning many hearts and minds in the West.
Public perceptions of China, by nation
Per cent, Pew Research Center Spring 2021
Global Attitudes Survey
Unfavourable view
Favourable view
North America
N. Zealand
Overall
median
the globe and mail, Source: pew research center.
those who did not answer not shown. does not
add to 100 due to rounding.
Public perceptions of China, by nation
Per cent, Pew Research Center Spring 2021
Global Attitudes Survey
Unfavourable view
Favourable view
North America
N. Zealand
Overall
median
the globe and mail, Source: pew research center.
those who did not answer not shown. does not
add to 100 due to rounding.
Public perceptions of China, by nation
Per cent, Pew Research Center Spring 2021 Global Attitudes Survey
Unfavourable view
Favourable view
North America
Netherlands
N. Zealand
Overall
median
the globe and mail, Source: pew research center. those who did not answer not shown.
does not add to 100 due to rounding.
The likelihood of viewers seeing any public dissent on display during the Games is next to zero, however –even athletes who might protest have been advised by activist groups not to risk it.
In developing nations, China is more popular, but winter sports generally aren’t. Ms. Brownell pointed out that most developing countries are in temperate and tropical climates, and “there’s a bit of a question as to whether that part of the world even watches the Winter Games.”
“The Winter Games will never match the Summer Games, because they involve half the number of athletes, half the number of countries,” said Dr. Dichter. “It just isn’t as big of a deal for much of the world.”
The government hopes the Olympics will kickstart a $200-billion winter sports industry, but it is starting nearly from scratch, with many people never having watched, let alone taken part in, most of the sports that will be on display next month.
“Winter sports are far away from our real life, to be honest,” said a Beijing resident named Zheng, whom The Globe and Mail is not identifying by her full name because of the sensitivities of discussing the Olympics with foreign media. “My daughter is more excited – she’s been looking up rules of different ice sports and now is something of an expert.” She said that compared with the 2008 Games, which felt more tangible, “this Olympics is more like a symbol to us. A symbol of our country becoming greater and more competitive on the international stage.”
After the billions of dollars spent, the diplomatic fallout and the stress about spiking COVID-19 cases, the organizers of Beijing 2022 will be hoping against hope the rest of the world sees it the same way.
With reports from Alexandra Li and the Associated Press
What are people saying about the Olympics?
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with Canadian Olympic and Paralympic athletes on Parliament Hill in 2018.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Many partners around the world are extremely concerned by the repeated human-rights violations by the Chinese government. That’s why we … will not be sending any diplomatic representation to the Beijing Olympics.
–Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
Based on ideological biases as well as lies and rumours, Canada and a handful of Western countries have been flagrantly engaged in political manoeuvring, with the attempt to disrupt the smooth progress of Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. Their clumsy performance can hardly find any support and is doomed to fail.
–China’s embassy to Canada
The Biden administration will not send any diplomatic or official representation to the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympic Games given the PRC’s ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang and other human-rights abuses.
–White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki
I don’t think we should politicize these topics, especially if it’s to take steps that are insignificant and symbolic … You either have a complete boycott, and don’t send athletes, or you try to change things with useful actions.
–French President Emmanuel Macron
Chinese President Xi Jinping with IOC chief Thomas Bach.Zhang Ling/Xinhua via AP
We are fully confident and capable of presenting to the world a fantastic, extraordinary and excellent Winter Olympics.
–Chinese President Xi Jinping
The Games should not be used as a distraction from China’s appalling human-rights record. On the contrary, they should be an opportunity to press China to address these issues.
–Amnesty International
The IOC awarded the Games to China, a country recognized internationally for its human-rights violations. This unfairly makes athletes pawns in a geopolitical fight. The IOC is to blame for putting athletes in this position; no athlete can be faulted for their choice to attend or not attend the Games.
–Advocacy group Global Athlete
Any behaviour or speech that is against the Olympic spirit, especially against the Chinese laws and regulations, are also subject to certain punishment.
–Beijing Olympics official Yang Shu on potential athlete protests
The pure ice and snow sports cannot tolerate dirty political calculations. Anyone who attempts to disrupt and sabotage the unity either by making an issue of the Winter Games or by manipulating the athletes will be framed as a clown in history.
–Global Times, Chinese state-run newspaper
Beijing 2022: More from The Globe and Mail
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Christine Sinclair scored one final goal at B.C. Place, helping the Portland Thorns to a 6-0 victory over the Whitecaps Girls Elite team. The soccer legend has announced she’ll retire from professional soccer at the end of the National Women’s Soccer League season. (Oct. 16, 2024)
At his first news conference as England’s newly appointed head coach, Thomas Tuchel – a German – was asked on Wednesday what message he had for fans who would have preferred an Englishman in charge of their beloved national team.
“I’m sorry, I just have a German passport,” he said, laughing, and went on to profess his love for English football and the country itself. “I will do everything to show respect to this role and to this country.”
The soccer rivalry between England and Germany runs deep and it’s likely Tuchel’s passport will be used against him if he doesn’t deliver results for a nation that hasn’t lifted a men’s trophy since 1966. But his appointment as England’s third foreign coach shows that, increasingly, even the top countries in the sport are abandoning the long-held belief that the national team must be led by one of their own.
Four of the top nine teams in the FIFA world rankings now have foreign coaches. Even in Germany, a four-time World Cup winner which has never had a foreign coach, candidates such as Dutchman Louis van Gaal and Austrian Oliver Glasner were considered serious contenders for the top job before the country’s soccer federation last year settled on Julian Nagelsmann, who is German.
“The coaching methods are universal and there for everyone to apply,” said German soccer researcher and authorChristoph Wagner, whose recent book “Crossing the Line?” historically addresses Anglo-German rivalry. “It’s more the personality that counts and not the nationality. You could be a great coach, and work with a group of players who aren’t perceptive enough to get your methods.”
Not everyone agrees.
English soccer author and journalist Jonathan Wilson said it was “an admission of failure” for a major soccer nation to have a coach from a different country.
“Personally, I think it should be the best of one country versus the best of another country, and that would probably extend to coaches as well as players,” said Wilson, whose books include “Inverting The Pyramid: The History of Football Tactics.”
“To say we can’t find anyone in our country who is good enough to coach our players,” he said, “I think there is something slightly embarrassing, slightly distasteful about that.”
That sentiment was echoed by British tabloid The Daily Mail, which reported on Tuchel’s appointment with the provocative headline “A Dark Day for England.”
While foreign coaches are often found in smaller countries and those further down the world rankings, they are still a rarity among the traditional powers of the game. Italy, another four-time world champion, has only had Italians in charge. All of Spain’s coaches in its modern-day history have been Spanish nationals. Five-time World Cup winner Brazil has had only Brazilians in charge since 1965, and two-time world champion France only Frenchmen since 1975.
And it remains the case that every World Cup-winning team, since the first tournament in 1930, has been coached by a native of that country. The situation is similar for the women’s World Cup, which has never been won by a team with a foreign coach, though Jill Ellis, who led the U.S. to two trophies, is a naturalized U.S. citizen born in England.
Some coaches have made a career out of jumping from one national team to the next. Lars Lagerbäck, 76, coached his native Sweden between 2000-09 and went on to lead the national teams of Nigeria, Iceland and Norway.
“I couldn’t say I felt any big difference,” Lagerbäck told The Associated Press. “I felt they were my teams and the people’s teams.”
For Lagerbäck, the obvious disadvantages of coaching a foreign country were any language difficulties and having to adapt to a new culture, which he particularly felt during his brief time with Nigeria in 2010 when he led the African country at the World Cup.
Otherwise, he said, “it depends on the results” — and Lagerbäck is remembered with fondness in Iceland, especially, after leading the country to Euro 2016 for its first ever international tournament, where it knocked out England in the round of 16.
Lagerbäck pointed to the strong education and sheer number of coaches available in soccer powers like Spain and Italy to explain why they haven’t needed to turn to an overseas coach. At this year’s European Championship, five of the coaches were from Italy and the winning coach was Luis de la Fuente, who was promoted to Spain’s senior team after being in charge of the youth teams.
Portugal for the first time looked outside its own borders or Brazil, with which it has historical ties, when it appointed Spaniard Roberto Martinez as national team coach last year. Also last year, Brazil tried — and ultimately failed — to court Real Madrid’s Italian coach Carlo Ancelotti, with Brazilian soccer federation president Ednaldo Rodrigues saying: “It doesn’t matter if it’s a foreigner or a Brazilian, there’s no prejudice about the nationality.”
The United States has had a long list of foreign coaches before Mauricio Pochettino, the Argentine former Chelsea manager who took over as the men’s head coach this year.
The English Football Association certainly had no qualms making Tuchel the national team’s third foreign-born coach, after Swede Sven-Goran Eriksson (2001-06) and Italian Fabio Capello (2008-12), simply believing he was the best available coach on the market.
Unlike Eriksson and Capello, Tuchel at least had previous experience of working in English soccer — he won the Champions League in an 18-month spell with Chelsea — and he also speaks better English.
That won’t satisfy all the nay-sayers, though.
“Hopefully I can convince them and show them and prove to them that I’m proud to be the English manager,” Tuchel said.
___
AP Sports Writer Jerome Pugmire in Paris contributed to this story.
TORONTO – Bobby McMann watched from the press box on opening night.
Just over a week later, the Maple Leafs winger took a twirl as the first star.
McMann went from healthy scratch to unlikely offensive focal point in just eight days, putting up two goals in Toronto’s 6-2 victory over the Los Angeles Kings on Wednesday.
The odd man out at the Bell Centre against the Montreal Canadiens, he’s slowly earning the trust of first-year head coach Craig Berube.
“There’s a lot of good players on this team,” McMann said of his reaction to sitting out Game 1. “Maybe some guys fit better in certain scenarios than others … just knowing that my opportunity would come.”
The Wainwright, Alta., product skated on the second line with William Nylander and Max Domi against Los Angeles, finishing with those two goals, three hits and a plus-3 rating in just over 14 minutes of work.
“He’s been unbelievable,” said Nylander, who’s tied with McMann for the team lead with three goals. “It’s great when a player like that comes in.”
The 28-year-old burst onto the scene last February when he went from projected scratch to hat-trick hero in a single day after then-captain John Tavares fell ill.
McMann would finish 2023-24 with 15 goals and 24 points in 56 games before a knee injury ruled him out of Toronto’s first-round playoff loss to the Boston Bruins.
“Any time you have success, it helps the confidence,” he said. “But I always trust the abilities and trust that they’re there whether things are going in or (I’m not) getting points. Just trying to play my game and trust that doing the little things right will pay off.”
McMann was among the Leafs’ best players against the Kings — and not just because of what he did on the scoresheet. The forward got into a scuffle with Phillip Danault in the second period before crushing Mikey Anderson with a clean hit in the third.
“He’s a power forward,” Berube said. “That’s how he should think the game, night in and night out, as being a power forward with his skating and his size. He doesn’t have to complicate the game.”
Leafs goaltender Anthony Stolarz knew nothing about McMann before joining Toronto in free agency over the summer.
“Great two-way player,” said the netminder. “Extremely physical and moves really well, has a good shot. He’s a key player for us in our depth. I was really happy for him to get those two goals.
“Works his butt off.”
ON TARGET
Leafs captain Auston Matthews, who scored 69 times last season, ripped his first goal of 2024-25 after going without a point through the first three games.
“It’s not going to go in every night,” said Matthews, who added two assists against the Kings. “It’s good to see one fall … a little bit of the weight lifted off your shoulders.”
WAKE-UP CALL
Berube was animated on the bench during a third-period timeout after the Kings cut a 5-0 deficit to 5-2.
“Taking care of the puck, being harder in our zone,” Matthews said of the message. “There were times in the game, early in the second, in the third period, where the momentum shifted and we needed to grab it back.”
PATCHES SITS
Toronto winger Max Pacioretty was a healthy scratch after dressing the first three games.
“There’s no message,” Berube said of the 35-year-old’s omission. “We have extra players and not everybody can play every night. That’s the bottom line. He’s been fine when he’s played, but I’ve got to make decisions as a coach, and I’m going to make those decisions — what I think is best for the team.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
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