BEIJING (AP) — International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach has officially closed the Beijing Olympics and the Olympic flame has been extinguished, marking the end of the most locked-down games in history.
Bach and the mayor of Beijing handed over the Olympic flag to the mayors of Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo in Italy, which will host the 2026 Winter Games.
Bach praised China and thanked the people of the country for staging the Games in a safe way. He said it “breaks our hearts” that some athletes could not attend because of the pandemic, but said they still belong to the Olympic community.
It was the second Olympics to be held since the coronavirus first emerged in China. The movements of athletes, media and workers was heavily restricted. Everyone wore masks and took daily COVID tests. There were only 463 positive COVID tests reported among thousands of people in Beijing for the Games.
Internationally, many denounced the IOC for holding the Olympics in concert with a Chinese government accused of human rights violations. The United States and several other Western governments protested by not sending any official delegations to the Games, though they sent athletes. China denied such allegations, as it typically does.
Earlier on the last day of the Olympics:
— Mikaela Shiffrin and the American mixed ski team missed out on a medal by 0.42 seconds, losing in the bronze matchup in the final Alpine ski event of the Beijing Olympics. The top-ranked Austrians won gold in the Winter Games’ second iteration of the mixed team parallel event, holding off Germany in the final. The U.S. primarily used Shiffrin on the slower of the parallel courses. She lost three of her four heats, including in the bronze matchup against Norway. Teammate River Radamus delivered the win the U.S. needed in the last heat to force a 2-2 tie, but he wasn’t fast enough to tilt the tiebreaker.
— Cross-country skier Therese Johaug of Norway won the women’s 30-kilometer mass start, her third gold at the Beijing Olympics. American Jessie Diggins kept a steady pace behind the Norwegian and crossed the finish line 1 minute and 43.3 seconds behind Johaug to win silver.
— Finland claimed its first Olympic men’s hockey gold medal with a 2-1 win over the Russian Olympic Committee. Hannes Bjorninen scored the go-ahead goal 31 seconds into the third period to complete the Finns’ comeback from an early 1-0 deficit. Finland’s best finishes in 17 previous Olympic appearances were silver medals in 1988 and 2006.
— Francesco Friedrich and Germany have finished off an unforgettable show in sliding at the Beijing Olympics. Friedrich won his second Olympic gold medal in Beijing and fourth of his career by driving to the win Sunday in the four-man event, the final sliding race of these games. Germans won gold in nine of the 10 sliding events.
— Eve Muirhead led Britain to the Olympic women’s curling gold medal the first for the sport’s homeland since 2002. The Brits were 10-3 winners against Japan.
