By Tony Munroe and Muyu Xu
BEIJING (Reuters) – Beijing extinguished its Olympic flame on Sunday, ending an Olympics that will be remembered for the extremes of its anti-Covid-19 measures and the controversy over the doping scandal surrounding 15-year-old Russian skating sensation Kamila Valieva. .
Chinese President Xi Jinping attended the ceremony at the Snowflake-themed Bird’s Nest Stadium where International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach described the Beijing Games as “truly exceptional” before declaring them. closed.
The Beijing Games, contained in a “closed circuit”, were the second Olympics in six months to have much of its festivity private by Covid-19.
The event was also marked by politics, with several countries staged a diplomatic boycott over China’s human rights record, and under the specter of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, with President Vladimir Putin attending the opening ceremony in a show of solidarity with Xi against the West.
Still, China was spared any embarrassing protests over its treatment of the Uighur Muslim minority or anything else, and the thousands of foreign journalists were stuck in the closed circuit, unable to report more widely.
Sunday’s ceremony was capped off by a 90-second fireworks display that read “one world, one family”, followed by a rendition of “Auld Lang Syne”.
During the closing, Bach praised the Beijing organizers and called for unity and universal access to vaccines against Covid-19.
“You have embraced, even if your countries are divided by conflict,” he said. “The unifying power of the Olympic Games is stronger than the forces that want to divide us: you give peace a chance.”
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