First medals up for grabs at the Beijing Winter Olympics

The first gold medals of the Beijing Winter Olympics will be awarded on Saturday as hosts China hope that the sport will roar to the fore after a troubled build-up dominated by coronavirus and rights concerns.

The first medals come in cross-country skiing, in the women’s 7.5-plus-7.5-kilometer skiathlon.

Among the competitors in that event will be Dinigeer Yilamujiang, a 20-year-old Uyghur athlete chosen by China as one of two athletes to light the cauldron in Friday’s opening ceremony.

Campaigners say at least one million people from mostly Muslim minorities, notably Uyghurs, have been incarcerated in “re-education camps” in the Xinjiang region.

The United States, Britain, Canada, and Australia are among countries staging a diplomatic boycott of the Games over China’s rights record, and particularly the fate of the Uyghurs.

Asked whether the inclusion of a Uyghur competitor in a ceremony featuring several generations of Chinese athletes met the International Olympic Committee’s standard of political neutrality, IOC spokesman Mark Adams said she had “every right” to participate.

“As you’ll know from the Olympic Charter, we don’t discriminate against people on where they’re from, what their background is,” he said.

“I think the concept of having all the generations there was a really excellent one.”

– Message of peace – The snowflake-themed opening ceremony in the “Bird’s Nest” was dazzling but less spectacular than the extravaganza that brought the curtain up on the Beijing Summer Olympics in the same stadium 14 years ago.

Before Chinese President Xi Jinping declared the Games open, IOC chief Thomas Bach appealed to “all political authorities across the globe”, urging them to “give peace a chance”.

“In our fragile world, where