Fun and Games
While 2020’s Summer Games were a year late, the 2022 Winter Games are right on schedule. But not missing a beat means surprises—especially for the athletes. (Surprise number one: Their events are already complicated by politics, with the U.S. staging a diplomatic boycott—athletes will still attend; dignitaries will not—in protest of China’s human rights record.) Ski slopes that are being groomed at this moment on Xiaohaituo Mountain, in Yanqing National Park, about 60 miles north of Beijing, were originally scheduled to host a 2021 trial run. That was canceled, due to the pandemic. This month, skiers will be meeting the mountain for the first time. “None of us know it,” says Mikaela Shiffrin, 26, the alpine ski racer who has won two Olympic golds, “but what I’ve seen from the videos,…
