Beijing - The three-day traditional torch relay for the Beijing Olympics began with Vice Premier Han Zheng began the event when he passed the iconic torch to 80-year-old Luo Zhihuan, China’s first internationally competitive speed skater and first winter sports world champion, at Olympic Foreign Park.
The relay opened at the Olympic Foreign Park. Luo Zhihuan, the country’s first internationally competitive speedskater, ran the first leg.
More than 1,000 torchbearers will carry the Olympic torch through three competition zones, starting with downtown Beijing before heading to Yanqing district and finally Zhangjiakou in neighbouring Hebei Province.
The Beijing Games have already been impacted on a scale similar to that experienced by Tokyo during last year’s Summer Olympics. China says only selected spectators will be allowed to attend events, and Olympic athletes, officials, staff and journalists are required to stay within a bubble that keeps them from contact with the general public.
Beijing, with its 20 million residents, has experienced only a handful of COVID-19 cases and reported just two new ones on Wednesday. However, in keeping with China’s “zero tolerance” approach to the pandemic, strict rules require lockdowns and mass testing when any real or suspected case is discovered.
The opening of the Beijing Games comes only days after the start of the Lunar New Year holiday, China’s biggest annual celebration when millions traditionally travel to their hometowns for family reunions. For the second straight year, the government has advised those living away from home to stay put, and train and plane travel has been curtailed.
Participants in the torch relay have undergone health screenings and have been carefully monitored, starting from two weeks before the event.
The scaled-down torch relay is a far cry from 2008, when Beijing sent the Olympic flame on a global journey ahead of hosting that year’s Summer Games. The relay drew protesters against China’s human rights violations and policies in Tibet, Xinjiang and elsewhere, leading to violent confrontations and the cancellation of some overseas stages.
The Winter Games have been beset by similar political controversies, alongside medical considerations.
Athletes have been threatened by the organizing committee with “certain punishments” for saying or doing anything that would offend their Chinese hosts, while several delegations urged anyone headed to Beijing to take “burner” phones instead of their personal devices because of concerns their personal information could be compromised.
American broadcaster NBC said it won’t be sending announcing teams to China, citing the same virus concerns raised when the network pulled most of its reporters from the Tokyo Games.
This year, numerous countries have refused to send an official delegation to attend the Beijing Winter Olympics, including the United States, Australia, Britain and Canada, as a protest against human rights abuses by the Communist Party regime.
The Olympics will be held under a so-called “bubble” that requires all Olympic athletes, officials, staff and journalists to remain isolated to keep the virus from potentially spreading into the general public.
-AP