2022 Olympic Winter Games

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The long awaited and much anticipated 2022 Olympic Winter Games take place in Beijing, China, Feb. 4-20. No spectators are permitted to attend any of the competitions other that those who are invited (there is no information on who those people might be).

A total of 144 skaters (a maximum of 18 athletes per country) are slated to compete in the individual events: men (30), women (30), pairs (19) and ice dance (23). The link for the athlete bios is included at the bottom of this page.

These Games will be held in tight bubbles, with athletes having no direct interaction with media or anyone outside their Olympic boundary. Media are also in a restricted bubble that permits them to travel to and from their hotels to venues, the Main Press Centre and the medal plaza. The American NBC and ESPN networks will not have any commentators on site in Beijing and Canada′s CBC network has also cut its in-person workforce.

The competitions will be split between morning and evening sessions. The Team Event will take place in the mornings local time but some of the individual events (rhythm dance, women and pairs) will be held in the evenings, Beijing time. That will mean early mornings for those watching from North America.

Russian athletes will compete under the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC) banner. No Russian flags are permitted and the national anthem will not be played for the gold medalists in any sport. Russia′’s Mikhail Kolyada was the first skater to withdraw due to a positive COVID test. Evgeni Semenenko will take his place.

The ROC will field the largest figure skating team of all nations with 18 participants; the U.S. is next with 16; Canada has 13 and Japan 10.

In what is most likely a historic record, 11 of the 23 ice dance duos that will compete in Beijing are coached by the team at the I.AM Academy in Montréal.

First up is the Team Event, which begins the morning of Feb. 4 (local time) with the men′s short, rhythm dance and pairs short. Teams from 10 nations — Russia, U.S., Canada, Japan, China, Ukraine, Czech Republic, Georgia, Germany and Italy — will contest the short programs with the top five advancing to the free skate.

Judges for the Team Event were drawn from the same pool as those for the individual competitions and therefore the panels are not limited to judges from nations that will compete. Russia was not drawn for any of the four panels for the Team Event in Nebelhorn, but an additional judges’ draw was held at the European Championships following the withdrawal of judges from the Czech Republic and Japan. Updated judging panels are below.

The individual competitions begin Tue. Feb. 8 with the men’s short program.