The 2022 Winter Olympics Get Off to Surreal Start on a Conflicted NBC
variety.comCaroline Framke Chief TV CriticTwo hours of parading nations later, IOC president Thomas Bach stood on the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony stage and did his best to justify the Olympic ideal in 2022, a year more surreal than most. “Division, conflict, and mistrust are on the rise,” Bach said. “[But] we show the world, yes, it is possible to be fierce rivals, but at the same time living peacefully and respectfully together.”This sentiment, nice though it is, might come as a surprise to those in the stadium, those not allowed anywhere near it, and those (like President Joe Biden) who boycotted the Games as a matter of political protest.
With the host country under a microscope for reported human rights abuses and a new alliance against the United States with Vladimir Putin’s Russia, NBC had no choice but to alternate its giddy coverage of Team U.S.A.
with dire reminders of this particularly fraught world stage. By the time the ceremony closed with Bach imploring the world to “give peace a chance,” and a sweeping rendition of John Lennon’s “Imagine” as is apparently required of every Olympics now, the 2022 Winter Olympics became exactly as surreal as could be expected.
It’s no exaggeration to say that every sporting event of the past two years has felt uncanny to witness, with the extremes of masked athletes waving up at empty stands and unmasked masses cheering as COVID cases keep spiking.
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