( news input : Reuters) : Beijing was set to close the curtain on a Winter Games that will be remembered for the extremes of its anti-COVID-19 measures and outrage over the doping scandal that enveloped 15-year-old Russian skating sensation Kamila Valieva.
Chinese President Xi Jinping was on hand for the closing ceremony at the Bird’s Nest stadium where the Olympic flag was handed to Milan-Cortina,as the second Games in six months to be deprived by COVID-19 of much of its festivity came to an end.
The Olympics were also stalked by politics, with several countries staging a diplomatic boycott over China’s human rights record, and the spectre of invasion of Ukraine by Russia, with President Vladimir Putin attending the opening ceremony in a show of solidarity against the West with Xi.
Still, China was spared any embarrassing protests by competitors over its treatment of the Uyghur Muslim minority or anything else, and the thousands of foreign journalists on hand were stuck inside the closed-loop, unable to report more widely.
