Beijing Olympics, Games start: opening ceremony at 1pm

From our correspondent Paolo Marabini

February 4th
– Beijing

This time Zhang Yimou focused on sobriety and youth. Fourteen years ago, the director of the magnificent “Red Lanterns” had enchanted the world with an opening ceremony of the Summer Games with a very high spectacular content, orchestrating a real army of artists: fifteen thousand dancers, actors, singers, acrobats, percussionists , animated the Bird’s Nest, the heart of that Olympics – which was to launch China as a global power – packed in every order of place and in the spotlight of the whole planet.

Even an Italian

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The Bird’s Nest, the magnificent national stadium, then the scene of Usain Bolt’s unforgettable record sprints, will once again open the 24th edition of the Winter Games in Beijing, at 13 Italian time. Now Zhang Yimou, also in respect of the limitations imposed by Covid, has focused on 3000 extras, chosen among the common (Chinese) people and especially among young people, including Helena Sambucini, an eighteen-year-old Italian who grew up in Guangzhou, who has been preparing for three months for an apparition that will last just over a minute. And although nothing leaks about it, the leitmotif of the ceremony will inevitably touch the pandemic. Which started from here, and which always from here, under the banner of Zero Tolerance, wants to be definitively eradicated. The message that must pass, loud and clear, is the very slogan of these Games: “Together for a shared future”, “Together for a shared future”. And the pandemic, which has brought the whole world to its knees, can only be definitively defeated by joining forces.

Crisis and boycotts

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It will be a one-hundred-minute show, reserved for a select few. In the grandstand, President Xi Jinping, who can’t wait to show the strength and efficiency of the Great Mother China through these Games, will have his friend Vladimir Putin at his side, to seal a special understanding with the Russian president and his country, in a very delicate historical moment. Above all, the Russia-Ukraine crisis takes center stage, but not only that. There are not a few empty seats. It is called a diplomatic boycott, the one that, starting from China’s lack of attention on the issue of human rights, has led some countries to decide not to send their government representatives: from the United States to Great Britain, from Belgium to Australia, continuing with Australia, Lithuania , Estonia, Kosovo. Italy, in the absence of Undersecretary Valentina Vezzali, blocked by Covid as the politicians of other countries announced at the time, will be replaced by the ambassador in Beijing, Luca Ferrari.

Torchbearer hunt

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As always, the last torchbearer toto was also taken, but even here we are at the very stitched mouths. The last 48 hours before the lighting of the brazier saw 1200 torchbearers alternate in the Olympic torch relay, which also passed through the other two Olympic sites, Yanqing and Zhangjiakou. Opening the last voyage of the flame was the first Chinese speed skating world champion since 1963, Luo Zhihan, who handed the torch to astronaut Jing Haipeng. Suddenly it also touched Yao Ming, the Chinese basketball star. Yet another to Colonel Qi Fabao, a real Chinese hero, commander of a border regiment who was wounded in the head in the fierce clash with the Indian army in the Himalayan ice, in June 2020.

Italy and Moioli

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As per tradition, the parade of the participating countries (here there are 91, with the new entries Saudi Arabia and Haiti) will be opened by Greece, the cradle of the Olympics. We will then follow according to the Mandarin alphabet until we close with the home delegation, preceded by Italy, as the host country of the next edition. The tricolor patrol, also on this occasion dressed in Armani, will be led by Michela Moioli, the PyeongChang 2018 Olympic gold snowboarder, initially chosen for the closing ceremony but then diverted here to replace her compatriot Sofia Goggia, forced to postpone her arrival in Beijing. from the injury in the descent ten days ago in Cortina.