Dharamshala, 2nd February: The three-day Olympic torch relay for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics began on Wednesday, with basketball legend Yao Ming and a Chinese soldier wounded in a violent border conflict with India among those carrying the symbolic flame. The soldier, known as Qi Fabao, is a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) regimental commander who was severely injured during a border confrontation with Indian troops in the Galwan Valley in 2020.

Wang Meng, China’s four-time Olympic short track speed skating champion, delivered the torch to Fabao as the relay began at the Olympic Foreign Park, according to China’s Global Times. The first leg was run by Luo Zhihuan, China’s first international competitive speedskater. The torch will be carried across the three Olympic zones, beginning in downtown Beijing and ending in Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province.

The scaled-down torch relay is a far cry from Beijing’s worldwide torch relay in 2008 when the Olympic flame was despatched on a global voyage ahead of hosting the Summer Games that year. Protests against China’s human rights breaches and policies in Tibet, Xinjiang, and elsewhere erupted during the relay, resulting in violent clashes and the cancellation of some international stages.

Political problems, as well as medical concerns, have tarnished the Winter Olympics. Six weeks ago, the United States, the United Kingdom, and numerous allies announced that they would not send dignitaries to the Beijing Olympics in protest of the Communist Party regime’s human rights violations.

The organizing committee has threatened athletes with “certain punishments” if they say or do anything that might offend their Chinese hosts, and several delegations have advised athletes to bring “burner” phones instead of their personal devices due to concerns that their personal information might be compromised.

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