The 2022 Winter Olympic Games, a dynamic showcase of international sports shadowed by the coronavirus pandemic and sharp debate over China’s worthiness as the host nation, ended on Sunday night in Beijing with an elaborate closing ceremony and a final flicker of the Olympic flame.
The closing ceremony in the Chinese capital was, as Olympic events ordinarily are, a display of theater, music and cultural traditions that did not dwell on, or even acknowledge, troubles surrounding the Games, including pre-Olympic concerns about China’s human rights record and a doping dispute that had some questioning the fairness of competition in figure skating, one of the most popular events of the Games.