The 3,000 extras did not manage to enthuse a restricted public and sorted on the component. Faced with criticism of NGOs on repression in Xinjiang, China has chosen an athlete Ouygur to participate in the ignition of the Olympic flame.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping gave the tone on Thursday, February 3, the day before the opening ceremony, in a short video message addressed to the International Olympic Committee: “China will do its best to offer the world of games Simple, safe and splendid winter Olympics. “One way to mark these games of his mark. His games. Beijing 2022 will not be a remake of Beijing 2008, which had been anything but simple.
The master of ceremonies, filmmaker Zhang Yimou, who already officiated in 2008, understood the message. China can no longer be content to show the world that it is a great modern country. She must “be loved”, had recognized the Chinese president in the spring of 2021. Hence the development, this year, during the ceremony, not only of Chinese technology – with some special special effects – but also the Chinese people and especially children.
The small people and children: two categories of the expensive population to a president who has made “common prosperity” and the demographic renewal of their priorities. Zhang Yimou, sentenced in 2014 to a heavy fine for having three children but today returned to grace, must savor this reversal of history. Consequence of this presidential choice: Unlike 2008, no Chinese star other than Sportive has been held in the honor. The hour in China is no longer at the rhinestones and glitter: the showbiz stars and the business world are discreet, except when they make a philanthropy.
Result: a ceremony without false note but without glamor or emotion. The 3,000 extras – almost five times less than in 2008 – have not managed to enthuse a relatively small audience – for sanitary reasons, the Olympic stadium was only half full – and sorted on the component. The show was successful but the failed party. The fault in the cold part that reigned in the bird’s nest, the stage built for the 2008 Games, but especially to the CVIV-19 crisis, as in Tokyo, in the summer of 2021.
Parade in boredom
Since the public is composed of Chinese – and even Beijing – the world was not at the rendezvous. Apart from the 176 Chinese athletes and, to a lesser extent, the sportsmen of Hong Kong, all the other delegations paradeed in a polite or policed silence, very quickly aroused more boredom than curiosity. Due to COVID-19, the distance between the stadium and some tests and, perhaps, a boycott by some athletes, a large part of the 91 delegations were composed of only some representatives.
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