The NZZ live blog about the games in Beijing

The latest developments

In our live blog we keep you up to date on the daily happenings at the Olympic Winter Games – with current, informative and funny things.

Scene of the opening ceremony.

Toby Melville/Reuters

1:53 p.m

flag bearers. As at the Summer Games in Tokyo, the flags of the participating nations will again be carried into the stadium by an athlete. In the Swiss team, this honor goes to ski racer Wendy Holdener and ice hockey player Andres Ambühl.

1:20 p.m

Enema of the athletes. Now the arrival of the Olympians begins, led by the Greek delegation and under the eyes of China’s President Xi Jinping and IOC President Thomas Bach. Russian President Vladimir Putin is also in the stadium. The temperature on site is -17 degrees Celsius.

The Greek delegation is the first to enter the stadium.

The Greek delegation is the first to enter the stadium.

Fabrizio Bensch / Reuters

1:03 p.m

dance, light and music. The opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics has started in Beijing. It promises to be a great spectacle. The director stages the show at the beginning based on the four seasons. The stadium is not well filled due to the capacity limitation.

Scene of the opening ceremony.

Scene of the opening ceremony.

imago

12:42 p.m

Video message from Shaqiri and Co. Shortly before the opening ceremony of the XXIV Olympic Winter Games (from 1 p.m.), the Swiss footballers wished the Swiss delegation in Beijing every success via video message.

Also the Sports Minister Viola Amherd insisted on sending a message (in three languages) to Beijing.

12:18 p.m

Simon Ammann as tour guide. How does it actually look like in the Olympic village? The four-time Olympic ski jumping champion from Toggenburg, who is contesting his seventh Winter Games in Beijing, documented a tour of the Zhangjiakou Olympic Village on Instagram.

12:11 p.m

The most important thing from the first day of competition. A day after the 1:12 defeat against Canada the Swiss women’s national ice hockey team also lost the second game in the Olympic tournament. Coach Colin Muller’s team lost to Team ROC 2:5. Captain Lara Stalder on the power play and Alina Müller, outnumbered, equalized twice for the Swiss.

Jenny Perret and Martin Rios have their backs to the wall in mixed doubles curling after their third loss in four games. The Seelander and Glarner lost against Canada, the 2018 Olympic champion, 5: 7. Already after the first end, the Swiss were 0:3 behind, although they had the advantage of the last stone.

Beat Feuz on his training ride.

Beat Feuz on his training ride.

Guillaume Horcajuelo/EPA

Niels Hintermann and Beat Feuz feel at home on the Olympia downhill slope. The man from Zurich and Emmental took sixth and tenth place in the second practice session for Sunday’s race. They lost around half a second to the best time set by Norwegian Aleksander Kilde. Marco Odermatt did not fare so well. The Nidwaldner who started with the number 1 was 2.2 seconds behind. Stefan Rogentin, the fourth Swiss starter, was nine tenths behind. (sda)

12:00 o’clock

Coffee or coughing? Communication problems caused strange problems for the freestyle snowboarders. Nicolas Huber, who had to stay in a hotel room for two days on arrival due to a positive corona test, feared prolonged isolation for a short time due to a misunderstanding. “I wanted coffee, the supervisor understood ‘coughing’,” says Huber. Coughing means coughing in English, and the supervisor, who only speaks Chinese, wanted to tick this on the questionnaire. (sda)

Even before he received the coffee, Nicolas Huber had put himself in a good mood on Instagram in the hotel room.

11:50 a.m

Give us today our daily bread. The Swiss cross-country skiers leave nothing to chance in Beijing – even off the trails. In China you can get all kinds of fine dining; However, bread is difficult to find. The cross-country skiers therefore quickly packed a bread baking machine with flour and yeast from Switzerland. Only the water is Chinese.

It is quite possible that the Swiss cross-country skiers were inspired by the Norwegian high-flyer Johannes Klaebo when concentrating on delicious bread. Because of an allergy, he always takes his own bread with him everywhere – baked by his grandmother Mildrid and then deep-frozen. He is also said to have flown their baked goods to Beijing.

11:45 a.m

Second largest Swiss delegation in history. 168 Swiss athletes are taking part in Beijing, five fewer than in Pyeongchang four years ago. At the opening ceremony, skier Wendy Holdener and ice hockey player Andres Ambühl will carry the Swiss flag – Ambühl is already contesting its fifth Winter Games.

Swiss Olympic has set itself the goal of 15 medals. Switzerland has only been this successful twice since the amateur clause was abolished: in 2018 in Pyeongchang and in 1988 in Calgary.

Swiss medals at Winter Games

Successes since the abolition of the amateur paragraph

11:35 a.m

Warming up for Olympic Day. The opening ceremony will take place at 1 p.m. Swiss time in Beijing’s Olympic Stadium, which was built for the 2008 Summer Games. Warm up for the games with our quiz.

How well do you know about the Winter Olympics?

Start the quiz

11:30 a.m

Read this in the NZZ today:

  • The Swiss record man. Simon Ammann is contesting his seventh Olympic Games in Beijing, more than any Swiss person before. In addition, the 40-year-old from Toggenburg is the most successful Swiss player at the Winter Games with Dario Cologna. Both have won four gold medals each. For background on Simon Ammann.
  • Walter Hofer has shaped ski jumping for 28 years as race director – now he has written a romance novel and wants to help China on the jumps. To the interview.
  • sterile games. Our correspondent in Beijing took part in the 2008 Summer Olympics. Little is left of the awakening and the party atmosphere from back then. To the mood report from Beijing.

11:15 a.m

Welcome, 热烈欢迎, to the NZZ live blog about the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing. Here we will keep you up to date on the major event every day.


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