The Winter Olympics are Here

🥇⛷🏒⛸ The 2022 Winter Games will officially kick off with today’s opening ceremony in Beijing (broadcast live early this morning and then again at 8 pm ET). A handful of events have already started ahead of the ceremony, including curling, figure skating, and ice hockey.

• To prevent the spread of Covid, China is running the Olympics in a “closed-loop” system. All participants will be tested daily, and none will be allowed out of the hotels and venues where the Games will take place.
• The US, UK, Canada, and Australia are participating in a diplomatic boycott of the Games due to China’s record of human rights abuses, meaning they aren’t sending lawmakers or other official luminaries.
• Many countries are advising athletes to leave their cell phones and laptops at home and bring burner devices instead due to surveillance and hacking concerns.

+Interesting fact: This will be the first Winter Games to rely completely on artificial snow. Beijing has built massive irrigation systems that could need as much as 2 million cubic feet of water to operate (equivalent to 800 Olympic-sized swimming pools).

+Star watch: The top Team USA athletes to follow.

+Looking ahead… This weekend’s coverage is jam-packed with events.