The 2022 Winter Olympic Games in Beijing finished on Sunday, after weeks of athletes representing their countries through rigorous competition.

The opening ceremony and closing ceremony featured dazzling lights, national flags, and Bing Dwen Dwen, the Beijing 2022 panda Olympic mascot.

The Beijing games had a total of 15 sports and 109 total events. The sports were alpine skiing, bobsleighing, biathlon, cross country skiing, curling, freestyle skiing, figure skating, ice hockey, luge, nordic combined, skeleton, ski jumping, snowboarding, speed skating, and short track speed skating. 

The variety of sports and events at the Olympics gave many athletes the chance to break a record in front of the whole world. Nils van der Poel, Swedish speed skater, broke the world record with a time of 6:08.84. The record was previously set by Patrick Roest from the Netherlands only minutes before him in a prior Olympic event. Kaishu Hirano broke a snowboarding world record of 24 feet and four inches above the halfpipe, representing Team Japan. Nick Baumgartner (American snowboarder) was the oldest athlete to compete in an event at the Olympics at 40 years old. Sarah Nurse (Canadian Ice Hockey player) broke a point record as well in the 2022 games.  The Norwegian team also broke the record for the most medals ever won in the Winter Olympics. 

Boundaries were broken as minorities and LGBTQ+ members made strides as the first to compete or to medal in their respective sports and events. Timothy LeDuc, American figure skater, became the first non-binary Olympic athlete in history. Erin Jackson, American speed skater, was the first African American woman to win medals in their Olympic events. 

The medal rankings were in very close proximity to one another due to the fact that there was such rigorous competition among the nations. The countries that held the top spots tend to be those with colder climates which allows more training opportunities. Norway ended with the top spot with 37 total medals ( 16 gold, 8 silver, 13 bronze). The Russian Olympic Committee (Russia) placed second overall with a total of 32 medals (6 gold, 12 silver, 14 bronze). Germany had the third highest medal count of 27 total medals (12 gold, 10 silver, 5 bronze). 

The Russian team, however, was not without its conflicts, considering the many doping scandals that the team has. The scandals have led them to compete under the name “Russian Olympic Committee” instead of simply being under their nation’s title because of their consistent abuse of the Olympic rules.

The Russians had another doping scandal in the 2022 Beijing games; this time, however, a fifteen year old girl was convicted. Figure skater Kamila Valieva, the convicted athlete, was still allowed to compete, just with a guarantee that no matter the skill she displayed she could not medal.

Owing also in part to their coaching, the Russian figure skaters were heavily watched as the world sympathized with them due to the harsh treatment they continue to receive.

In other news, the United States team had one athlete who announced his retirement from the Olympic games. Shaun White, world famous snowboarder, officially declared the Beijing 2022 games his last time competing for Olympic glory. White finished fourth overall in his category, which is impressive considering his age of 35. Another high point for Team USA was Nathan Chen’s rebound to gold after he placed fourth Pyeongchang. 

The next Winter Olympics will occur in four years in Milan and Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy. The two areas are roughly five hours apart from each other, making this the first Olympics to be held in two different cities, two different regions, and two different provinces.