Games under a cloud With Tokyo 2020 now in the history books, tough questions about Beijing 2022 will start arriving in the International Olympic Committee’s inbox in their droves. Liam Morgan looks ahead to what will be a politically charged Winter Games.
T
he postponement of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games had an added benefit for the International Olympic Committee. Not only did it allow the organisation to protect its revenue and ensure the athletes were granted the stage they deserve - albeit in front of empty stands - but it also meant sceptical and critical eyes were diverted away from the next Games, the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. Instead of a year-and-a-half of criticism and questions over China’s human rights record, widely condemned in the west, the IOC will get away with a little more than six months of constant negative headlines.
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There are, of course, those in the media and elsewhere who have done their best to keep Beijing 2022 and the treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang, which some countries have decried as a genocide, in the limelight. But the focus for the Olympic Movement, plunged into its worst crisis for decades because of the coronavirus pandemic, had been on Tokyo 2020 and organising an unprecedented Olympic Games. Not any longer. Tokyo 2020 has been and gone, and Beijing 2022 is now firmly on the horizon. In just over 100 days, the 2022 Winter Olympics will open in the Chinese capital,
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marking the beginning of the end of a seven-year journey since Beijing beat Almaty to the hosting rights at the 2015 IOC Session in Kuala Lumpur. Last month, the official slogan of the Games - “Together for a Shared Future” was unveiled by organisers. Critics, however, have their own tagline for Beijing 2022: The “Genocide Games”. There has been widespread condemnation of Beijing's treatment of Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang as well as its crackdown on protesters in Hong Kong and its policies towards Tibet and Taiwan. China has been accused of suppression and of conducting a surveillance campaign
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