Tag Archives: Olympic Games

300 Days To Go: BioNTech Vaccine in China & Boycott Threats Ease

There are now just 300 days to go until the Beijing Winter Olympics, but with Tokyo into its final runway – marking 100 days to go this week – the Beijing Olympics are in a bit of a holding pattern. All eyes are now turning towards Japan to see how it handles the Games, and China will no doubt be basing many decisions for 2022 on what happens this summer. But with more concrete news on a possible BioNTech vaccine in China, plus the US backing off its boycott talk – at least for now – it’s certainly been a better week for Beijing Organizing Committee.

Weekly Roundup

  • Government set to approve BioNTech vaccine in China
  • Test events finish second round
  • President Xi pledges “simple, safe and splendid Olympics”
  • “Too early” for US to discuss boycott
  • More boycott news from around the world
  • Other features and stories in the build-up to Beijing 2022
Continue reading 300 Days To Go: BioNTech Vaccine in China & Boycott Threats Ease

44 Weeks To Go: Test Events, Nike Reprieve & Chengdu Postponement

The Economist this week asked “Will countries boycott China’s Olympics in 2022?“, concluding that “if an Olympic boycott movement gains momentum, it may be due as much to China’s behavior abroad as to its abuses at home.” It’s a different take to most of the articles we’ve seen in recent weeks, but wraps in some of the other elements going on, of which there is more below.

Weekly Roundup

  • Olympic test events get underway
  • Nike Xinjiang update
  • 2021 World University Games postponed to 2022
  • US ice hockey moves suggests NHL players will return to Olympics
  • Joint Korean train ride proposed
  • Boycott threats from around the world
  • Other features and stories in the build-up to Beijing 2022
Continue reading 44 Weeks To Go: Test Events, Nike Reprieve & Chengdu Postponement

49 Weeks To Go: Testing, Testing, Testing

So the 2022 Olympic Games are happening, right? Well, COVID-19 is trending in the right direction globally and Beijing will also have to fend off the threat of a boycott (more of that later), but we should have a pretty good sense of where things stand by the summer.

I don’t actually think the Tokyo Olympics have much bearing on Beijing, although if Tokyo progresses as (currently) planned, it would be staggering to see Beijing subsequently called off. I’ve heard talk that if Tokyo is scrapped, then Beijing will be too, but personally I think a Tokyo cancellation would only make China even more determined to host their Games. So while Tokyo in August is a marker, I would look instead to what happens just a few days later with the Summer World University Games in Chengdu, scheduled to start on August 18. The last version in Naples, Italy, was a slightly scaled down affair, but Chengdu is due to be back at the level of 2017 (Taipei) and Gwangju (2015), which each hosted more than 11,000 athletes. So that should provide a solid indication of how China plans to cope with hosting thousands of athletes, international travel restrictions, quarantine, testing, vaccination requirements and all the other lovely things we now have to deal with.

Continue reading 49 Weeks To Go: Testing, Testing, Testing

50 Weeks To Go: Corporate Conundrums & Olympic Agendas

Erich Swatzerl from The Wall Street Journal wrote a piece this week entitled “2022 Beijing Olympic Games Loom as Test for Corporate Sponsors“, which neatly encapsulates not just the looming headaches for Olympic sponsors, but the current landscape for doing business in China. In fact, while the whole piece is worth a read, the sub-header pretty much says it all:

“Silence on human-rights issues risks alienating U.S. consumers; speaking up could earn the host nation’s ire.”

You could swap out “human-rights issues” for a host of other controversial topics du jour and the sentiment would remain, although increasingly this applies to global consumers, not just those in the US.

Nowhere has this been illustrated better than in the case of the NBA, with the “Morey Tweet” incident still dogging the league in China. That situation was particularly notable because it brought an international brand’s dealings in China into the mainstream consciousness for really the first time – and put the league in an impossible situation. Previously, if western brands had fallen afoul of Chinese keyboard warriors for using an incorrect map or making a geographical typo, they could issue a groveling apology – in Chinese only – and wait out the storm until another brand slipped up and took their place in the hot seat. Most people elsewhere in the world would have been none the wiser.

But’s that no longer the case.

Continue reading 50 Weeks To Go: Corporate Conundrums & Olympic Agendas

51 Weeks To Go: Boycotts & Hockey Fights

With 51 weeks to go until the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing, we’re on the eve of the Lunar New Year here in China, which means we’re about to enter the Year of the Ox, but – perhaps more importantly – we are leaving the Year of the Rat behind. That’s because Rat years are often associated with disaster and bad luck – with the massive Sichuan earthquake in 2008 and COVID-19 being the two most obvious examples from the past two Rat years.

While Beijing has been marking the one-year countdown (see more below and last week’s recap), given that there’s been little sporting action to discuss, talk of a boycott has been gathering pace overseas. I’m not going to offer any thoughts on whether or not a boycott should happen – there are plenty of far more qualified people on both sides of the equation already doing that – but my own analysis of the evidence today is that a Beijing Olympics boycott won’t happen.

Quite simply, the Europeans, which includes a sizable number of major winter sports nations, don’t seem to be interested in a boycott, and, while opinion of China in the US – both among the public and government – appears to be at, or near, an historic low, a solo boycott could easily backfire on Washington and come across as a toothless protest from a petulant nation. Canada could conceivably join, though the situation there is complicated by the respective detentions of Meng Wanzhou and the two Michaels, but there seems to be more excitement there about the prospective return of NHL players to the Olympics (see more below) than there is talk of a Beijing Olympics boycott.

Continue reading 51 Weeks To Go: Boycotts & Hockey Fights

Memories of the 2008 Beijing Olympics – and what happened next

Ten years ago tonight, I had the privilege of witnessing one of the most dominant Olympic performances of our time, as Usain Bolt ran 9.69 in the men’s 100m final at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. But I nearly missed the race entirely – and much has changed in China’s sports scene over the ensuing decade.

Continue reading Memories of the 2008 Beijing Olympics – and what happened next

Xi to stay on, Wanda to get out, Tmall turns to F1 and more Milan misery

Here’s a summary of what you can find in my weekly China Digest for SportBusiness:

Continue reading Xi to stay on, Wanda to get out, Tmall turns to F1 and more Milan misery

China leaves Pyeongchang on a high

Here is this week’s China Sports column for SupChina, which was first published here.  

Continue reading China leaves Pyeongchang on a high

Experience is key for Team China in Pyeongchang

Here is a summary of this week’s China Sports column for SupChina, which was first published here.  

Continue reading Experience is key for Team China in Pyeongchang