Games open with a bang
Agencies | Beijing
The Daily Tribune – www.newsofbahrain.com
Chinese President Xi Jinping yesterday declared the games open as triumphant fireworks decorated the night sky merely hours before proclaiming a “no limits” friendship with Russia.
The Russian leader - who hosted his own winter Olympics in 2014 just days before sending troops to seize Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula - thanked Xi for inviting him, adding: “We know firsthand that this is a huge job.”
In a joint Russian-Chinese statement, Beijing backed Russia’s longstanding call for NATO to halt its expansion - Moscow’s central demand in a dispute with Western countries that say they believe Putin is preparing for war in Ukraine.
The games is being held on a backdrop of geopolitical rivalry unseen since the tit-for-tat Cold War boycotts of the 1980s when the United States refused to attend the Olympics in Moscow and the Soviet Union stayed away from Los Angeles.
Hours before presiding the spectacular Olympics opening ceremony in the famed Bird’s Nest stadium before a crowd thinned out because of COVID-19, President Xi Jinping announced a new alliance with Russia’s Vladimir Putin. Three thousand performers took to a stage comprised of 11,600 square metres of high-definition LED screens.
Dancers poured into the stadium waving glowing green stalks to mark the first day of spring on the Chinese calendar, followed by an explosion of white and green fireworks that spelled the word “Spring”. Lasers carved imagery from each of the previous 23 Winter Games. The block was then “broken” by ice hockey players, enabling the Olympic rings to emerge, all in white.
Related Posts