BEIJING (AP) — The Newest on the Beijing Winter Olympics:
The Olympic flame has been extinguished in Beijing, marking the top of essentially the most locked-down video games in historical past.
It was the second pandemic Olympics within the greater than two years because the coronavirus first emerged in China.
The actions of athletes, media and staff have been closely restricted and everybody wore masks and took every day COVID checks. There have been solely 463 constructive COVID checks reported amongst hundreds of people that got here to Beijing for the Video games.
Internationally, many denounced the IOC for holding the Olympics in live performance with a Chinese language authorities accused of human rights violations. A number of Western governments boycotted by not sending any official delegations, although they despatched athletes. China denied such allegations, because it sometimes does.
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Consideration now turns to 2024 in Paris, the place officers hope for a COVID-free and scandal-free Summer time Video games.
Worldwide Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach has formally closed the Beijing Olympics on the Chicken’s Nest stadium.
Bach praised China and thanked the folks of the nation for staging the Video games in a secure manner.
It was essentially the most locked-down Olympics ever, with contributors restricted to a COVID-safe bubble the place they took every day checks, wore masks and noticed strict protocols.
He additionally thanked the volunteers who helped be certain the Video games ran easily.
He mentioned it “breaks our hearts” that some athletes couldn’t attend due to the pandemic, however mentioned they nonetheless belong to the Olympic group.
The president of the Worldwide Olympic Committee and the mayor of Beijing have handed over the Olympic flag to the mayors of Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo in Italy, which is able to host the 2026 Winter Video games.
That is the primary time two cities have formally hosted the Olympics collectively. Cortina hosted the video games in 1956. This would be the third Winter Video games in Italy – Turin hosted in 2006.
After three straight Olympics held in Asia – Pyeongchang, Tokyo and now Beijing – the Video games head to the West for the foreseeable future, with no probability of returning till at the very least 2030.
The following Olympics would be the Summer time Video games in Paris in 2024.
The winners of the boys’s and girls’s 30-kilometer mass begin cross-country ski races have obtained their medals on the closing ceremony for the Beijing Olympics.
Alexander Bolshunov of the Russian Olympic Committee earned his third gold medal of the Beijing Olympics on Saturday. The race was purported to be 50 kilometers, but it surely was delayed by an hour and shortened to 30 kilometers due to frigid temperatures and robust wind.
Russian teammate Ivan Yakimushkin received silver and Simen Hegstad Krueger of Norway took bronze.
Within the girls’s race on Sunday, Norwegian nice Therese Johaug received her third gold medal of the Beijing Olympics. Jessie Diggins took silver for the very best consequence by an American in a person cross-country snowboarding occasion since 1976. Kerttu Niskanen of Finland received bronze.
The ladies additionally needed to battle fierce winds and frigid temperatures.
Athletes who’re nonetheless in Beijing after competing on the Winter Video games are parading into the stadium for the closing ceremony as “Ode to Pleasure” performs.
The athletes needed to endure strict COVID protocols, together with testing to get into the nation, every day testing after they arrived and sporting masks besides once they have been competing. They needed to stay inside the Olympic bubble the complete time they have been in China.
Not many examined constructive, however those that did have been taken to isolation accommodations the place they raised issues about troublesome dwelling circumstances and a ignorance.
The closing ceremony for the Beijing Video games has begun, signaling the top to the second Olympics of the pandemic period.
There is a modest however enthusiastic crowd of invited company shaking hand clappers and doing the wave on the Chicken’s Nest stadium.
Regardless of COVID issues forward of the Video games, a strict system that mainly turned the Olympics into an enormous bubble saved coronavirus circumstances to a minimal. There have solely been 463 constructive checks amongst hundreds of tourists contained in the bubble since Jan. 23.
There was loads of different drama among the many athletes. A doping scandal involving a 15-year-old determine skater overshadowed the ladies’s competitors. U.S. snowboarding star Mikaela Shiffrin faltered and went dwelling empty-ended. And American-born star Eileen Gu received three medals – for China.
Internationally, many critiqued them because the “authoritarian Olympics” and denounced the IOC for holding them in live performance with a authorities accused of human rights violations. A number of Western governments boycotted by not sending any official delegations, although they despatched athletes. China denied such allegations, because it sometimes does.
South Korean Olympic officers say they nonetheless wish to embrace North Korea in serving to host the 2024 Winter Youth Olympics and the IOC can also be within the undertaking.
Korean Sport & Olympic Committee president Lee Kee Heung says the group will provide North Korea the chance to carry the occasion collectively.
South Korea is internet hosting the subsequent winter version of the Youth Olympics in two years’ time in Gangwon province. It should use a number of the similar venues because the 2018 Olympics, named for the city of Pyeongchang.
The 2018 Winter Video games have been held throughout a thaw in relations between the Korean neighbors, whose athletes entered the opening ceremony collectively and fielded a mixed girls’s hockey crew.
Diplomatic relations are presently tense and a North Korean missile take a look at final month raised concern in Seoul and Washington, D.C.
Gangwon organizers have been in Beijing and Korean Olympic official Lee says: “The IOC has eager curiosity on this thought” of cooperating on internet hosting in 2024.
Hannes Bjorninen scored the go-ahead purpose 31 seconds into the third interval and Finland claimed its first Olympic males’s hockey gold medal with a 2-1 win over the Russian Olympic Committee on the ultimate day of the Beijing Video games.
Ville Pokka additionally scored and Harri Sateri stopped 16 photographs as Finland rallied from a 1-0 first-period deficit. The Finns’ greatest finishes in 17 earlier Olympic appearances have been silver medals on the 1988 Calgary Video games and 2006 Torino Video games.
Mikhail Grigorenko scored for the favored Russian crew, the defending champions, within the second consecutive match with out NHL gamers. The Russians received 4-3 over Germany in additional time within the gold-medal last on the 2018 Pyeongchang Video games.
Ivan Fedotov stopped 29 photographs for the Russian Olympic Committee.
Finland accomplished the match with a 7-0 report.
Taiwan’s premier desires a Taiwanese Olympic speedskater to be punished for sporting what seemed to be a go well with from rival China’s crew throughout coaching.
Symbols of the 2 sides are particularly delicate at a time when China’s ruling Communist Occasion, which claims Taiwan as a part of its territory, is making an attempt to intimidate the island democracy by flying fighter jets and bombers close by.
Huang Yu-ting, one among 4 Taiwanese athletes on the Winter Video games, posted a video on her social media web page Jan. 23 exhibiting her coaching in what seemed to be a Chinese language go well with, the Central Information Company reported. It mentioned Huang apologized and eliminated the video.
Premier Su Tseng-chang requested the Ministry of Schooling and the Sports activities Administration to research so Huang would “obtain an enough punishment,” CNA reported, citing a Cupboard spokesperson, Lo Ping-cheng.
Taiwan’s Sports activities Administration mentioned Huang would face no penalty however must be “extra conscious of the sensitivity of cross-Taiwan Strait politics,” in line with CNA.
Cross-country skier Therese Johaug of Norway received the ladies’s 30-kilometer mass begin, her third gold on the Beijing Olympics.
Preventing fierce winds and brutal temperatures, she went out entrance early within the race and held on, ending in 1 hour, 24 minutes and 54 seconds. Johaug additionally received the skiathlon and 10-kilometer basic race.
American Jessie Diggins saved a gradual tempo behind the Norwegian as gusts whipped throughout the tracks, battering the skiers. She crossed the end line 1 minute and 43.3 seconds behind Johaug to win silver. She had already turn into the primary American girl to win an particular person cross-country medal when she took bronze within the dash earlier within the Beijing Video games.
Finland’s Kerttu Niskanen received bronze 2 minutes and 33.3 second again.
Sturdy wind gusts despatched snow squalls throughout the frozen tracks as the ladies skied 4 laps on a 7.5-kilometer (4.6-mile) course with buffs pulled up over their hats, tape throughout their faces and additional layers underneath their racing fits.
Francesco Friedrich and Germany have completed off an unforgettable present in sliding on the Beijing Olympics.
Friedrich received his second Olympic gold medal in Beijing and fourth of his profession by driving to the win Sunday within the four-man occasion, the ultimate sliding race of those video games.
There have been 10 sliding occasions in Beijing. Germany received gold in 9 of them and took 16 medals total. The remainder of the world mixed had 14 medals in sliding.
Johannes Lochner received silver for Germany on Sunday and Justin Kripps of Canada obtained the bronze. Hunter Church was tenth for the U.S. and Frank DelDuca tied for thirteenth.
Eve Muirhead led Britain to the Olympic girls’s curling gold medal — the primary for the game’s homeland since 2002 — with a record-setting 10-3 victory over Japan.
Sooner or later after the British males took silver, dropping to Sweden within the last, the ladies picked up two factors within the first finish and managed the scoreboard from there. They primarily clinched it within the seventh after Japanese skip Satsuki Fujisawa did not maintain her final stone within the scoring space.
That left only one pink Japanese rock and three yellow British ones in the home. Muirhead simply picked off the Japan’s lone stone and scored 4 to take an 8-2 lead, bringing the most important cheer but from the British followers within the crowd.
Japan might solely handle one level within the eighth. When Muirhead tallied two within the ninth, Fujisawa slid over to bump fists and concede. One other roar arose from the group, which included the boys’s silver medalists.
It was essentially the most lopsided girls’s last in Olympic historical past.
It was the second straight medal for the Japanese crew of Fujisawa, Chinami Yoshida, Yumi Suzuki and Yurika Yoshida, who took bronze in Pyeongchang. The Swedish girls received bronze on Saturday evening, beating Switzerland.
Mikaela Shiffrin and the American combined ski crew missed out on a medal by 0.42 seconds, dropping within the bronze matchup within the last Alpine ski occasion of the Beijing Olympics.
The highest-ranked Austrians received gold within the Winter Video games’ second iteration of the combined crew parallel occasion, holding off Germany within the last.
The U.S. primarily used Shiffrin on the slower of the parallel programs, and she or he misplaced three of her 4 heats, together with within the bronze matchup towards Norway. Teammate River Radamus delivered the win the U.S. wanted within the final warmth to power a 2-2 tie, however he wasn’t quick sufficient to tilt the tiebreaker — mixed occasions of the quickest man and girl — to the Individuals’ favor.
Austria additionally tied within the last towards the Germans, however Stefan Brennsteiner and Katharina Liensberger took their heats in a sooner mixed time than Lena Duerr and Alexander Schmid. Austra took silver within the occasion’s debut at Pyeongchang 4 years in the past.
Shiffrin, a two-time gold medalist, went 0 for five in her bid for a person medal in Beijing. She solely reached the end line at two particular person occasions, coming in ninth within the super-G and 18th within the downhill.
Extra AP Winter Olympics: https://apnews.com/hub/winter-olympics and https://twitter.com/AP_Sports
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