By STEPHEN WADE, AP Sports Writer
Building elaborate venues for Beijing’s 2022 Winter Olympics is the easy part for China, just as it was for the city’s Summer Olympics in 2008. The competition venues are ready, and non-competition sites will be completed this summer with the Games set to open one year from Thursday on Feb. 4, 2022.
But these Olympics are already scarred by accusations of rights abuses including genocide against more than 1 million Uighurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups in the western Xinjiang region. And unlike 2008, a new generation of Olympic athletes is speaking out on social issues and discrimination and challenging IOC rules against using the Olympics as a stage.
Hanging over all of this is the COVID-19 pandemic that has already delays and still threatens the Tokyo Summer Olympics in six months.
China says its ability to control the virus through lockdowns, quarantines, contact tracing and mask wearing should alleviate any concerns. The Winter…
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