BEIJING: A Beijing Winter Olympics beset by concerns about rights and Covid in the build-up and tarnished by a Russian doping scandal once underway were set to close on Sunday.
The curtain will come down on a Games which will be remembered for sporting excellence and the doping controversy which engulfed 15-year-old figure skater Kamila Valieva, but also because they took place inside a vast Covid-secure “bubble”.
The impressive “Bird’s Nest” stadium — which also took centre stage when Beijing hosted the 2008 Summer Games — will be the scene for the closing ceremony, as it was for the opening on Feb 4.
In the more than two weeks since, a new global star was born in the form of 18-year-old freestyle skier Eileen Gu, who was born in…
