Expert insight: Beijing, boycotts and the battle for human rights

International Olympic Committee headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland (Photo source: IOC/Greg Martin). With the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games about to begin, there are many debates occurring in the media and in academic literature on the most controversial topics the Olympic movement has ever faced. Make no mistake, there has always been some kind of crisis debated in the media leading up to an Olympic Games - doping, terrorism, Zika virus, human rights, to name a few. For this 2022 Winter Olympic Games there are at least two primary themes: Why weren't the Olympic Games postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic like the Tokyo Olympics was? And why isn't the world boycotting the Beijing Olympic Games due to human rights violations by China? The athletes' perspective on these matters is critical - "nothing about us without us." Pandemic pressure In regard to the first question, we see COVID-19 Omicron cases on the rise with lockdowns in Xiong'an in China, and athletes testing positive, including some Canadian athletes, as they arrive to prepare to compete in the Winter Olympics. China has implemented what it has called a 'zero-COVID' strategy, which includes much more rigorous restriction than even those implemented by Japan for the Tokyo Games last summer. Some athletes, like the Norwegian Nordic skiers, and sport federation leaders, including ski association presidents, claim the Winter Olympics should have been postponed by a year as they grapple to deal with positive COVID-19 tests by some of the best medal contenders who are then forced into isolation in China.