Overview

The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics are the twenty-fourth Winter Olympic Games taking place in Beijing, China, which began in early February 2022. The games attracted an intense amount of scrutiny and criticism due to global political controversies surrounding China, with some boycotting them altogether. The host country was also accused of cheating during the games after several controversial calls went in favor of Chinese athletes, subsequently spawning memes about China's alleged cheating or unfair advantage.

Background

Beijing was selected to be the host nation of the 2022 Winter Olympics in 2015.^[1] Attendance at the games was severely hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic, and athletes were forced to undergo daily testing and a 14-day quarantine to participate.^[2] Prior to the games, there was significant global protest due to political grievances against China, particularly the country's human rights violations and the Uyghur genocide. The United States, Canada, The UK and Australia were among countries undergoing a "diplomatic boycott" of the games, meaning they allowed athletes to participate but did not send diplomatic representation to the games.^[3] The game's opening ceremony took place on February 4th, 2022.

Developments

Cheating Allegations

During the first weekend of the Olympics, multiple controversial calls that favored Chinese athletes led to suspicion that the judges were biased in favor of China. Major incidents include referees missing a Chinese speed skater knocking a trail marker into another racer's skate, causing a crash, and Chinese speed skater Ren Ziwei winning gold despite a crash at the end of the race that saw him tackle a competitor who had entered his lane (shown below).

The explanation behind why Ren Ziwei won gold in the men's 1000m short track.#WinterOlympics pic.twitter.com/h0exkZDHKs

— NBC Olympics (@NBCOlympics) February 7, 2022

On Reddit, memes about the alleged cheating also surfaced on the platform at the beginning of the games. For example, on February 7th, Redditor Key-Debate-9213 posted a scene from the parody film The Dictator to the /r/mildlyinfuriating^[4] subreddit about the Olympic Games, receiving over 115,000 upvotes and 5,200 comments in two days (seen below).

Shougang Big Air Competition

The February 7th, 2022, Shougang Big Air competition generated commentary and memes on social media due to it taking place in front of a power plant with large concrete cooling towers looming over the ski slopes. Twitter users began memeing on the event after Twitter user @LeaMaric dubbed it a "hellscape" (shown below). Some also debated whether the characterization was fair to China, noting that there were similar-looking locations in the West.

Hellscape pic.twitter.com/ZFXyEMc2pY

— ɐ͎ʞ͎ć͎ı͎ɹ͎ɐ͎ɯ͎ (@LeaMaric) February 7, 2022

Search Interest

External References