With Olympics Closing Ceremony, China Celebrates a Joyless Triumph

As athletes marched into the Bird’s Nest stadium in Beijing on Sunday, China closes the most contentious Olympics in years.Credit...James Hill for The New York TimesBEIJING — All along, Chinese officials insisted that the Olympics were not about politics, but rather sports. In the end, controversy and scandal haunted those, too.

For all of China’s efforts to carry on the Winter Games with a festive spirit, Beijing 2022 unfolded as a joyless spectacle: constricted by a global health disaster, fraught with geopolitical tensions, tainted once again by accusations of doping and overshadowed by the crisis in Ukraine.

As athletes marched into the Bird’s Nest stadium in Beijing on Sunday night to…