Winter Olympics 2022 – Beijing welcomes the world on Friday with the opening ceremony

Friday February 4 2022 will be a very special day in China, as the Beijing’s National Stadium – aka the Bird’s Nest — hosts the Winter Olympics 2022 opening ceremony. It is almost 14 years since the Chinese capital hosted the Summer Olympics in 2008, and the event marks the official start of the games, despite the action actually getting underway on Wednesday.

WHEN DOES IT START? Ad/> It begins at 12pm (8pm Beijing time), and you can watch it all unfold on Discovery+ Beijing 2022Are Winter Olympic gold medals made of real gold?AN HOUR AGO This year’s ceremony will focus on the official 'Together for a shared future' motto of the games, focusing on the challenges which the world has faced through the Covid-19 pandemic and other challenges, such as global warming. Chinese film director Zhang Yimou is the man in charge of the festivities, just as he was for the Summer Olympics ceremony in the same stadium.

This event is expected to be on a much smaller scale though, with the i reporting that 3,000 performers will take part, as opposed to 15,000 in 2008. NO SNOW, NO PROBLEM Beijing 2022 will be the first Winter Olympics to use 100 per cent artificial snow, with a staggering 220 million litres of water needed to produce around a million cubic metres of fake snow.

This has led to a number of environmental concerns that this will require a high amount of energy, but organisers say this will come from 100 per cent renewable sources. The Chinese authorities have sought to reassure the IOC that they will be using wind and solar energy to help power the games and the city of Beijing as a whole.