| Hosts: Beijing, China Dates: 4-20 February |
| Protection: Watch continue to exist BBC TV, BBC iPlayer, BBC Pink Button and on-line; pay attention on BBC Radio 5 Reside and BBC Sounds; reside textual content and highlights on BBC Recreation site and cellular app |
The Beijing Wintry weather Olympics got here to a detailed on Sunday in a touching rite.
Nearly 3,000 athletes competed in 109 occasions throughout 15 disciplines all through the previous two weeks.
World Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach referred to as for political leaders “all over the world” to be impressed through the athletes’ “instance of team spirit and peace”.
“This unifying energy of the Olympic Video games is more potent than the forces that wish to divide us,” he stated.
Bach stated the athletes had “given peace a possibility,” along with his feedback coming amid emerging tensions between Russia and Ukraine.
“Every considered one of you strived to reach your own highest. We had been deeply touched the way you had been wishing and cheering on your competition to reach their highest as neatly,” he stated.
“You no longer best revered each and every different: you embraced each and every different, even supposing your international locations are divided through war.”
Bach additionally inspired international locations to proceed vaccinating in opposition to Covid-19, announcing: “If we wish to in the end conquer this pandemic, we should be quicker.
“We should goal upper, we should be more potent, we should stand in combination. Vaccination method taking care of each and every different.
“On this Olympic spirit of team spirit, we name at the world neighborhood: give equivalent get right of entry to to vaccines for everyone all over the world.”
Nice Britain depart Beijing with two medals – gold within the girls’s curling and silver within the males’s tournament.
Curling skip Bruce Mouat, who led the lads’s rink, was once the flagbearer for Group GB on the last rite.
The Olympic flame was once extinguished, with the following Video games happening in Milan-Cortina in Italy in 2026. The Wintry weather Paralympics starts in Beijing on 4 March.
Valieva saga overshadows Video games
The Beijing Video games had been engulfed through the talk surrounding Russian determine skater Kamila Valieva and {the teenager}’s failed drug take a look at.
The certain take a look at got here to mild after the Russian Olympic Committee gained gold within the workforce determine skating, with the 15-year-old changing into the primary girl to land a quadruple bounce at an Olympic Video games.
Then again, the medal rite was once not on time, with it coming to mild that Valieva had examined certain for a banned drug used to stop angina assaults.
After a sequence of appeals and re-appeals, Valieva was once allowed to compete in the remainder particular person occasions, nevertheless it has ended in questions about her training workforce and the equity of kids competing in Olympic occasions, specifically as she crumbled in her ultimate tournament.
Not one of the podium athletes from the development have won their medals, with the IOC asking the Global Anti-Doping Company (Wada) to research the certain end result.
“Each athlete needs an excellent taking part in box and we additionally need to offer protection to the well being and psychological well being of athletes,” two-time Olympic champion Lizzy Yarnold stated on BBC TV.
“The largest factor I’ve realized is remembering athletes are people. We want to offer protection to our younger athletes.”
There were moments of brightness. Norway will depart Beijing with a file 16 gold medals and 37 in overall, having ruled within the snow.
China’s 18-year-old Eileen Gu was one of the most stars of the Video games with gold within the giant air and halfpipe, whilst snowboarder Shaun White closed his profession at the slopes.
The largest carrying marvel was once The usa’s Mikaela Shiffrin, a heavy pre-Video games favorite to wash up within the snowboarding occasions. She crashed out of 3 of her highest occasions and didn’t set up to clutch a medal within the others.
Whilst the Video games had been a luck for China, who secured their highest Wintry weather Olympics medal haul, questions over human rights abuses and the protection of tennis participant Peng Shuai that ruled the build-up to the contest stay.
Combined feelings for Group GB
That is Nice Britain’s lowest medal overall since 2010, the place they gained a sole gold within the girls’s skeleton.
UK Recreation set a goal of 3 to seven medals however there have been numerous near-misses and unhappiness within the sliding occasions, making it the primary time since 2002 that Britain have did not win a skeleton medal.
Snowboarder Charlotte Bankes, 2018 skeleton bronze medallist Laura Deas and alpine skier Dave Ryding had been a few of the medal hopes, however struggled for rhythm and shape in Beijing.
Britain’s first medal of the Video games got here on Saturday within the males’s curling, earlier than Eve Muirhead’s rink claimed gold at the ultimate day.
Sally Munday, the manager government of UK Recreation, stated the “biggest development can come if we in reality be informed from unhappiness”.
“I additionally know that while the remaining 24 hours has created actual pleasure, there are a variety of our athletes who will depart Beijing disenchanted,” Munday wrote.
“While there were some memorable performances, many didn’t reach the consequences they got here for and nobody can be extra disenchanted than the athletes themselves.
“We all the time knew that Beijing 2022 could be a problem like not anything that they had prior to now skilled.
“We additionally know that the jeopardy that makes sports activities on snow and ice this sort of compelling spectacle for the ones people observing may be a recipe for uncertainty. This undeniably performed its phase in fighting a few of our medal hopes from reaching their goals.”
