Sébastien Le Belzic, edited by Solène Delinger
We had almost forgotten them. However, the Winter Olympics begin on February 4 in Beijing, China. An important event for the athletes and for the city too. Beijing is the first to host the Olympics twice. The summer ones in 2008 and the winter ones this year. But with the Covid and the restrictions, the protest is losing its magic and the public should not be there.
The heart is not really there. Only one month away from the Winter Olympics in Beijing, which begin on February 4, the Chinese are no longer looking forward to the event, which has lost its magic due to the epidemic resumption. If the presence of spectators is authorized in the stadiums, their number will be limited.
Few Chinese will attend the Olympics
An icy wind is blowing over Beijing. Just one month before the Games, the streets are deserted around the Olympic site. The capital is barricaded for fear of the virus. And few Chinese will travel to Beijing from the provinces. For these Pekingese, we are very far from the atmosphere of the Summer Games in 2008.
“I’m going to watch TV, but I’m not sure I’m going to attend,” one of them confides at the microphone of Europe 1. “I really feel like I haven’t lent so much beware of the Olympic Games in 2008 “, outbid another Pekingese. “It is surely because of the pandemic, because most people cannot go to see the Games in person,” he says.
A sanitary bubble
If the Tokyo Games were held in empty stadiums, spectators will still be allowed in Beijing, but their number will be limited and none can come from abroad. But one month before the Games, the ticket office is still not open. The organizing committee has not yet specified how far the public will be able to approach the sanitary bubble in which the competitions will take place.