Sebastien Le Belzic
modified to
07:12, February 04, 2022
The opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics will take place this Friday at 1 p.m. French time. Despite the absence of representatives from the United States, Great Britain and Australia who have diplomatically boycotted these Games because of human rights abuses in China, Beijing wants to ensure a grandiose show in the image of 2008.
The Beijing Olympics ceremony will take place this Friday noon from 1 p.m. Despite a very strict organization of the Games due to the Coronavirus, the Chinese want to impress the rest of the world with a Dantesque ceremony.
China has already announced that it will use fireworks and lights in the Beijing Olympic Stadium where the ceremony will take place. It was in this same stadium that the famous opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics took place in 2008, which mobilized 15,000 extras.
Dictators in the gallery
The 2022 ceremony will be a little smaller. 3,000 extras and artists will perform in the stadium. The ceremony is expected to last 100 minutes. This is the director Zhang Yimou, the director of the film Wife and Concubines who will be at the helm of the ceremony. The filmmaker had already organized the 2008 ceremony.
The show will also be in the grandstand, where there will be no audience, just hand-picked guests and heads of state, including Russian President Vladimir Putin and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. ‘Saudi Arabia. The President of Kazakhstan, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, will also be present. No American, British or Australian representatives will be there. The three countries have called for a diplomatic boycott of these Games because of human rights violations.