Uyghurs surprise at Winter Olympics opening ceremony doesn't alter sportswashing claims

Fake news to fake snow is the journey many believe China has taken to host these Winter Olympics.

Denying claims of human rights abuses whilst manufacturing the white stuff on which the world’s alpine stars can perform in an age of global warming and ice-cold geopolitics.

Undeniable is China’s ability to put on a show, they proved it again through fireworks, special effects and 3,000 performers in the Bird’s Nest Stadium.

But also their capacity to shock as, in a finale nobody saw coming, Dinigeer Yilamujiang, a cross country skier from the Uyghur minority the government are accused of repressing, was selected to light the flame.

The treatment of the Uyghurs is at the centre of a US-led diplomatic boycott of these 24th Winter Olympics.

Even a turn of events as dramatic as this is unlikely to alter China’s standing in the eyes of the western world; to change the view of the likes of Team GB skier Gus Kenworthy that it has no right to the sporting spotlight.

IOC president Thomas Bach can argue until he’s blue in the face that bringing the Games here has brought 300 million Chinese into winter sports.

He can keep repeating his mantra that the Olympics are always about “building bridges, never erecting walls”.

It doesn’t alter the belief of many that making China hosts enabled ‘sportswashing’ - a distraction from more serious concerns.

For all that we are back in the same place this feels different from 14 years ago when television’s biggest ever audience sat open-mouthed at the spectacular opening of those summer Games.

Perhaps because this time biting cold replaced the heat and humidity of that night 2,008 drummers pounded out a beat in perfect unison.

More likely because rather than the smog of the past, coronavirus is