February 4, 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics news and results

To light the Olympic cauldron, China chose two athletes: skiers Dinigeer Yilamujiang and Zhao Jiawen.

Like the rest of the highly choreographed ceremony, the choice of Dinigeer and Zhao appears symbolic and deliberate. Dinigeer is a Uyghur, an ethnic minority in China's far west region of Xinjiang — where China has been accused of massive human rights violations. The United States and United Kingdom have gone so far as to accuse the Chinese government of genocide against the Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities.

The US State Department estimates that up to two million people have been detained in internment camps in Xinjiang since 2017. China says the camps are vocational training centers, aimed at combating terrorism and separatism, and has repeatedly denied accusations of human rights abuses in the region.

Many Western countries refused to send official delegations to Beijing for the Games due to the allegations of widespread rights violations in Xinjiang.

The decision to pair Dinigeer and Zhao — who is of Han decent, the dominant ethnicity in China — could be a propaganda display, as the ceremony was big on displays of ethnic unity. In addition to the pairing of Zhao and Dinigeer, members of China's 56 official ethnic groups joined to display the flag of the People's Republic.

China has, in recent years, deployed an all-out propaganda effort to shift the narrative in Xinjiang that includes sending state media reporters to the region to supposedly "prove" there is no oppression there and targeting Beijing's critics overseas.

Beijing is the first city to host both the Summer and Winter Olympics. It held the Summer Games back in 2008 and won the host bid for the 2022 Winter Games in 2015.

Athens, Paris, London, Los Angeles and Tokyo have all hosted the Summer Games more than once, according to the Olympics website.

Beijing's National Stadium, commonly referred to as the Bird's Nest, also is the first venue to host opening and closing ceremonies for both the Summer and Winter Olympics. In 2008, the stadium was used for competitions, but this year, it will be only used for the ceremonies, according to the site.

The torch connects the two Games as well, according to the site:

As the Beijing Winter Olympics gets underway, Chinese artist Ai Weiwei is once again criticizing China's ruling Communist Party — and the International Olympic Committee (IOC), which he said is "ignoring" the safety of the country's athletes by prioritizing business and "standing next to the authoritarians."

The world-renowned Chinese dissident and rights activist has been living in self-exile in Portugal since 2021. Fearing for his safety were he to return to China, where he was once detained for 81 days for "inciting the subversion of state power," Ai has resided around Europe for almost seven years.

Years prior to his departure from his home country, Ai famously consulted on the design of the venue hosting Friday night's opening ceremony: The Beijing National Stadium, or "Bird's Nest."

The open-roofed structure, wrapped in interwoven steel structs, functioned as one of the main venues for the Summer Olympics in 2008. A collaboration with Swiss architecture firm Herzog & de Meuron, the stadium took five years to build and was designed to represent a new, modern China.

But the artist distanced himself from the project and criticized China's hosting of the Olympics ahead of the opening ceremony, believing it to be a propaganda tool at odds with what he felt were the oppressive realities of life in the country.

"Unfortunately, as an architect, you cannot control how the building is being used," Ai told Amanpour in the interview, which airs Friday. "For me it's a big disappointment, not only in how it's being used but also in the directions China (has taken) in past decades."

A number of countries have boycotted the Beijing Winter Olympics. This means that while their athletes compete in the Games, their government officials will not be present in the country as is common practice.

Here are some countries that are boycotting the Games for different reasons.

United States: A “record number” of 177 US athletes walked at the Opening Ceremony, despite the Biden administration's boycott of the Games in December as a statement against China's "ongoing genocide and crimes against humanity in Xinjiang."

Australia, United Kingdom and Canada: The three countries followed the US and announced a diplomatic boycott.

Japan: While it stopped short of calling the decision a boycott, the government also announced in December that it will not be sending Cabinet ministers or senior officials to the Games, saying Japan “believes that respect for human rights is important. We made a decision comprehensively.”

India: The country announced a diplomatic boycott on Thursday after China decided to make a soldier involved in the June 2020 Galwan clashes as the torchbearer. 

Public broadcaster Doordarshan also announced it will not telecast the opening and closing ceremonies live. India has one athlete, skier Arif Khan, is participating at the Olympics. 

In June 2020, at least 20 Indian soldiers were killed in a bloody brawl with Chinese troops in the Galwan Valley, close to Aksai Chin, an area controlled by China but claimed by both countries. It is unclear if or how many Chinese soldiers died. Both sides have accused the other of overstepping the de facto border, the Line of Actual Control (LAC) that runs along the western sector of the valley. 

Taiwan: The self-governing island, which diplomatically boycotted the Games, is a flourishing democracy, but the mainland's ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues to view the island as an inseparable part of its territory — despite having never controlled it. Today, relations between Taipei and Beijing are at their lowest point in decades.

When the Taiwan team entered the stadium, the Olympic live commentary announced “Chinese Taipei” – Taiwan’s official name in the Olympics. Chinese state media CCTV, however, introduced the team as “China Taipei” – a designation that implies the island is part of China. 

Seven torchbearers carried six torches in the final torch relay inside the Bird's Nest.

All the torchbearers are Chinese winter sport athletes born in sequential decades – the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, and the last two torchbearers from the 2000s. The sequential order is meant to show the continuity of winter sports across generations.

Here are the athletes who served as torchbearers:

The last torch was shared by two 2022 Olympians —Yilamujiang Dinigeer, a cross-country skier from Xinjiang, and Zhao Jiawen, a Nordic Combined athlete — to celebrate gender equality. They lit the Olympic cauldron together.

The lighting of the Olympic cauldron marks the official beginning of the Winter Games and the end of Friday's Opening Ceremony.

As the Opening Ceremony draws to its conclusion, the Olympic flag arrives inside the Bird's Nest stadium.

Six athletes take their time in walking the flag across the floor to the flagpoles at one end. They walk between the motto "Faster, Higher, Stronger - Together" which is beamed all over the stadium floor.

A group of 40 children sing the Olympic anthem as the flag is raised slowly in front of the crowd.

Chinese President Xi Jinping declared the Beijing Winter Olympics open after a speech from International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach.

This was followed by a show of fireworks.

International Olympic Committee (IOC) president Thomas Bach uses his official speech to thank the Chinese people for welcoming the Winter Olympics so warmly.

Bach's messages go down well with the crowd who cheer enthusiastically.

The 68-year-old also addressed the Covid-19 pandemic and thanked scientists for going "above and beyond" to make the Games possible.

The IOC has come under fierce criticism in regards to China's human rights record and Bach told the stadium, and the millions around the world watching, that the Olympics stood for a world with "no discrimination whatsoever" and urged people to "give peace a chance."

From the host nation, Chinese athletes were the last to parade at the Opening Ceremony in Beijing while President Xi Jinping waved on. The stadium changed its lighting to red as Team China enter.

Beijing is the first city to host both the Summer and Winter Olympics. Jinping has made a concerted effort to make China a significant player in international sports.

China has built 800 new ski resorts and having 300 million skiers in the country in time for the Winter Games, according to NBC, the official rights holder for the Olympics for the United States.