Beijing again hosted an opening ceremony for the Olympics and, like that for the Summer Games in 2008, it was directed by Zhang Yimou. The event was on a much smaller and more muted scale than that memorable occasion – with 3,000 people taking part as opposed to 15,000. The motto, in a Games inevitably affected by the Covid pandemic and mired with political controversy, was to be simple, safe and splendid.
1) The rites of spring
Rather than having specifically recorded music for the athletes’ parade, it was accompanied by a selection of 19 well-known classical music excerpts which wouldn’t be out of place on Now That’s What I Call Classical Music. Organisers said it was to show the respect of the Chinese people to culture from around the world.
Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring would have been appropriate, as the season featured heavily as the opening theme. The lifecycle of the dandelion was represented by dancers carrying improbably tall and flexible glowing green stalks, which eventually turned white and were seen on video screen to be floating up into the sky as the seeds dispersed. Fireworks then wrote the word “spring” in the sky above Beijing’s Bird’s Nest stadium.
2) A nod to the past – on a giant ice cube
Those of a certain vintage would have been reminded of the old Fox’s Glacier Mint adverts as a giant ice cube rose from the floor. This was the ceremony’s moment to acknowledge the Games that had come before, as lasers appeared to etch on its surface the names and dates of the 23 cities to previously host the Winter Games, going right back to Chamonix in 1924.
3) Illusions perfectly made for television
Olympic opening and closing ceremonies have, over the years, become a theatrical genre in their own right. They need to be designed to work for both the audience in the stadium and on television screens across the globe.
One sequence featured children dancing and singing across the arena, while the LED screens beneath them automatically tracked their footsteps, making stars appear at their feet as they performed and moved around.
4) Protests around the globe as the Games open
The lead-up to these Games have been marked with political protests over the International Olympic Committee’s decision to award the hosting rights to China. In London, as the ceremony took place, there was a demonstration outside the Chinese embassy.
There were also protests against the Games in Istanbul, Berlin and New Delhi – the Olympics uniting people in a way that the organisers had not wanted.
5) First appearances for Haiti and Saudi Arabia
Haiti and Saudi Arabia are making their Winter Olympics debut – both of them sending one man to compete in the Alpine skiing; 19-year-old Richardson Viano carried the Caribbean nation’s flag, while 24-year-old Fayik Abdi is representing the Middle Eastern kingdom.
6) A politically fraught appearance for Taiwan
The delegation from Taiwan had initially indicated they would not attend the ceremony. The IOC insisted they must. Due to China’s long-standing objection to the country using the name Taiwan at the Games, their athletes had to march under a banner saying Chinese Taipei and a neutral flag. Ho Ping-jui and Huang Yu-ting genuinely did not look thrilled to be there.
7) Those chunky-knit flag-heavy GB outfits
Designed by Ben Sherman and modelled below by the flag-bearer and curling medal hope Eve Muirhead, the main feature of the Team GB uniform for the opening ceremony appeared to be a nice chunky-knit jumper that would keep you warm on a fishing trip. No word as to whether Team GB’s most famous knitter – diving gold medallist Tom Daley – was involved in the choice.
8. Kazakhstan win the costume competition
Speed skater Yekaterina Aidova of Kazakhstan put most countries’ costume efforts to shame.
The Kazakhstan team had also arranged a synchronised move to take off their scarves and wave them in unison.
9) Ireland’s luge doctor carries the flag
Elsa Desmond was carrying Ireland’s flag. Incredibly she had to set up the Irish Luge Federation from scratch herself in order to be able to compete. As well as working to qualify for the Winter Olympics, during the pandemic she also qualified as a doctor, and as soon as the Games finish she will be back to where she works in a hospital in Southend, Essex. The freestyle skier Brendan Newby joined her in carrying the flag.
10) A message about prejudice from the IOC’s chairman
Treading a delicate line – Chinese authorities have cracked down on political dissent before the Games and the Beijing Winter Olympics Athletes’ Commission has warned athletes against speaking out – the IOC president, Thomas Bach, gave a short speech where he praised the diversity of the Games and explicitly spoke out against discrimination.
There was a message, too, for world leaders, with a call for the observation of the Olympic truce Bach told them to “give peace a chance”. A different John Lennon song – Imagine – also got another opening ceremony outing, as it had at Tokyo last year.
11) A unique and spectacular lighting of the flame
The cutest sequence was without doubt a video insert of children on ice and snow learning to take part in winter sports. Like something out of You’ve Been Framed, you can’t go wrong with children falling over in the snow. That led up to the lighting of the Olympic flame.
Ceremonies have begun competing to have different iconic lightings of the flame. We had been promised something never seen before. The giant snowflake that had been a feature of the ceremony had been made by interlocking the signs that had been held up in front of each team as they entered the arena. The Olympic torch was placed in the middle of it, hoisted into the sky and the show was over, leaving the sporting action to begin.
