These are not the Olympics that Beijing hoped to host.
When China was awarded the 2022 Winter Games in a surprisingly close vote of the International Olympic Committee seven years ago, few could have predicted how much the world, and the host nation, would change by the time they arrived. But now here they are: at the start of the third year of a pandemic; as the second consecutive Olympics closed to nearly all fans; and at a moment when an increasingly confident China has made plain its intent to host one of the world’s largest and most global sporting spectacles entirely on its terms.