PM Imran joins world leaders at vibrant Beijing Winter Olympics opening ceremony

The prime minister, who reached China on Thursday, was accompanied by Overseas Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi, Info Minister Fawad Chaudhry and Planning and Improvement Minister Asad Umar on the event.

Among the many athletes parading on the ceremony was Pakistani skier Mohammad Karim from Gilgit-Baltistan. The 26-year-old is the one Pakistani athlete who will compete within the Alpine Snowboarding Slalom occasion on February 16.

A tiny four-member contingent can be representing the nation on the Winter Olympics, the Pakistan Olympic Affiliation introduced on Tuesday. Moreover Karim, it contains Syed Noman Ali because the chef de mission, Nadeem Ajmal Khan because the crew chief and Mirza Mohammad Qamar because the Covid-19 liaison and the coach.

PM Imran and his delegation rose from their seats to affix the spectators in welcoming Pakistan’s squad because it paraded at Nationwide Stadium, waving the nationwide flag.

Friday’s ceremony started shortly after President Xi Jinping and Worldwide Olympic Committee Chaiperson Thomas Bach entered Nationwide Stadium, additionally known as Fowl’s Nest stadium.

In line with media stories, round 3,000 athletes from 91 nations would compete throughout 109 medal occasions within the Winter Olympics, which is able to conclude on February 24.

Quickly after the beginning of the ceremony, the Chinese language flag was handed amongst 56 folks representing China’s totally different ethnic teams earlier than it was raised and the nationwide anthem carried out.

Held on the primary day of Spring by the Chinese language calendar, the ceremony noticed a gap act by dancers waving glowing inexperienced stalks to convey the vitality of the season, adopted by an explosion of white and inexperienced fireworks that spelled the phrase “Spring”.

On a three-dimensional dice resembling a block of ice, lasers carved imagery from every of the earlier 23 Winter Video games. The block was then “damaged” by ice hockey gamers, enabling the Olympic rings to emerge, all in white.

That was adopted by the standard “parade of countries”, with every of the 91 delegations preceded by a lady carrying a placard within the form of a snowflake resembling a Chinese language knot.

In step with Olympic custom, the parade was led into the stadium by Greece with the remainder ordered by stroke quantity within the first character of their Chinese language identify, which meant Turkey was second, adopted by Malta, with host China set to go final.

The entrances for “Hong Kong, China”, in addition to for Russia, generated applause within the partially stuffed stadium.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, the very best profile international chief current for the Video games, might be seen within the stadium with out a masks. Nevertheless, the athletes from his nation had been unable to hold its flag because of doping violations, marching as a substitute beneath the usual of the Russian Olympic Committee.

The opening ceremony passed off beneath the shadow of the Covid-19 pandemic and a diplomatic boycott of the Video games by some nations, together with america and the UK, over alleged human rights violations by China.

The gang itself was pared down, with organisers deciding final month to not promote tickets to Olympic occasions to curtail the unfold of Covid-19.

A “closed loop” separated opponents and different personnel from the Chinese language public all through the Olympics.