The 2022 Winter Olympics will formally get underway with the opening ceremony taking place on Friday in Beijing. The ceremony is taking place at the Bird’s Nest stadium, built and used for the 2008 summer Olympic games, as Beijing becomes the first city to host both editions of the games. The stadium also served as the venue for Track and Field as well the men’s 2008 gold medal soccer game, but will not host any sporting events in 2022.
The opening ceremony will be directed by Oscar-nominated cinematographer Zhang Yimou, who directed the opening and closing ceremonies in 2008. The parade of nations is expected to follow the same order as at Beijing 2008, with countries entering the stadium according the strokes used in the Chinese-language characters of their names. Greece, as tradition dictates, will enter first as the first-ever host of the Olympics, and China as the host nation will enter last.
Away from the ceremony, British curlers Jen Dodds and Bruce Mouat will take on Australia in the mixed doubles event. Team USA dominated figure skating events that began on Friday, starting with American star Nathan Chen, 22, topping the chart with a new personal record of 111.71 in men’s short while Madison Hubbell and Zachary Donohue earned 86.56 in rhythm skating. Follow all the latest below.
