In this week’s look at all the latest news in the build-up to the Olympics and elsewhere:
As mentioned last week, I’ll still be looking at whatever Winter Olympic action crops up, plus all the developments on the road to Beijing 2022, but as we head into the summer months, other sports will also get a look in, with star swimmer Sun Yang and his retrial in a doping case getting top billing this week, along with China’s last-minute switch to play its upcoming World Cup qualifying games in the UAE, which could have significant implications for China’s 2022 World Cup hopes.
In this week’s look at all the latest news in the build-up to the Olympics and elsewhere:
The next few months are not likely to see a huge amount of action when it come to Winter Olympic sports in China. Beijing is very much in waiting mode for at least three main reasons: a celebration, a mourning and the Tokyo Olympics.
In this week’s look at all the latest news in the build-up to the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics:
Thanks to all of you who got in touch after last week’s story about the current state of Chinese ice hockey and the car crash that appears to lie in wait at the 2022 Beijing Olympics. I heard from multiple players, coaches, industry execs and journalists, who all reached out to offer some thoughts. It also resulted in at least one follow-up story, with The Economist – of all people – highlighting the situation.
Continue reading Rocky Road Ahead for Chinese Ice Hockey HopefulsIn news that has not previously been reported, China Sports Insider can exclusively reveal that the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) has threatened to kick the Chinese team out of its own Olympic ice hockey tournament on home soil in Beijing if China doesn’t get its act together quickly, according to multiple sources. Furthermore, the situation is so dire that the IIHF has offered to waive its own eligibility requirements to allow China to bolster its own team through foreign-born recruits.
Continue reading Frostbitten: China Facing Olympic Ice Hockey ExpulsionIt’s really quite extraordinary that there are only 40 weeks to go until the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing and yet we still have no idea what it’s going to look like, or even who will be there. Ticketing has yet to start, sponsors have little idea what they can do – and we won’t have answers to any of these questions (and more) for several more months at least.
But that is the COVID reality. For one of the most meticulously planned events in the world, flexibility has become a necessary. It’s unsettling, but in the context of the rest of the global headlines, it’s still fairly inconsequential.
The IOC has its hands overflowing with Tokyo logistics right now, but it’s already taking center stage for Beijing, with allegations of suppliers sourcing from Xinjiang and suppressions of freedom over the Rule 50 refresh. The fun continues…
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.
Do we really have another 43 weeks of boycott talk to go before the Beijing Winter Olympics? As the peerless China watcher Bill Bishop wrote this week, a boycott is “highly unlikely”, but it’s connected to so many other China issues du jour that the column inches just keep flowing. As always, there’s a round-up below, but plenty of other stuff, too, including Ping Pong Diplomacy, which happened exactly 50 years ago today (April 10). If you have any questions or specific topics of interest you’d like to see covered, please feel free to comment or email me at mark@chinasportsinsider.com
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.
China’s vaccine diplomacy took a twist this week with news emerging after this week’s virtual IOC Session that China has offered its vaccines to all participants of the next two Olympics – this summer in Tokyo and next February in Beijing. Well, “offered” is perhaps a touch generous, since IOC President Thomas Bach says the IOC will cover the costs. But already there has been some opposition…
