Beijing Olympic’s opening ceremony celebrated creativity and put forth their technological advancement.

These Olympics won’t be a normal one as the pandemic is still raging across the globe. The ceremony occurred on February 4th from 8 PM to 9:40 PM local time in Beijing. The event was located in the National Stadium which is also known as the Bird’s Nest in Pékin, China. It’s the same stadium that was used in the Summer Olympics of 2008 with a few upgrades to accommodate the winter athletes

 The ceremony was opened by Xi Jinping, president of the People’s Republic of China. The director of the ceremony is Zhang Yimou who is a famous movie producer from China. He also directed the ceremony in 2008.

In the ceremony, the national anthem of China was heard as they are hosting the games and we will hear the Olympics games anthem too is heard at every Olympics. One of the themes that were to be used for the ceremony is the willingness of China to make world peace. There is also a slogan for this year’s Olympics which is  “Together for a shared future”. Another theme is the motto of the Olympics,  “faster, higher, stronger – together”. Since the Chinese Government is very strict about sanitary measures, the ceremony didn’t have any viewers in the stadium. The covid restrictions were even more strict than those from the 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo. You could watch the ceremony on TV and it was presented on many channels from across the world.

Cai Qi, who is the president of the Beijing 2022 organizing committee, did a speech to talk about world peace and welcomed all the great athletes. Thomas Bach, the president of the IOC (International Olympic Committee) also thanked China for hosting the Olympics once again after 14 years. After that, Xi Jinping finally announced “I declare, the XXIV Olympic winter games of Beijing … open!” to close off the ceremony. 

The show then started as fireworks raised to the sky. The show also featured 10552 square meters which is the biggest LED screen in the world. Multiple songs like the Olympics hymn (sang in Greek), Imagine by John Lennon, Tribute to the people, and more. Hundreds of kids wandered around the stadium while singing ‘’Snowflakes’’ the official theme song of the ceremony. Snowflakes and stars were on the LED floor. Finally, Digineer Yilamujiang was the one who lit the famous Olympic flame at the end of the ceremony. 

Now that the Olympics have been going on for more than a week, we can’t wait to see what China has to give for the end ceremony.