Ice dancer Tina Garabedian will be Armenia’s flag bearer at the opening of the Olympic Games in Beijing today.

“I am so excited and honored to be the Armenian flag bearer at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games!” Tina says.

The most divided Olympic Games in decades gets under way in China on Friday. The authorities have decided that no tickets will go on sale to the general public. Only members of the ruling Communist Party or staff from government-controlled companies are being invited, and even they have to abide by strict testing and restrictions.

Spectators are just one part of China’s strict Covid prevention measures.

The athletes and officials are all inside strictly managed “bubbles” to try to stop any spread. They can’t leave. Anyone travelling between bubbles in official cars or coaches has been told that, in the event of a crash with a member of the public, they must stay in their vehicle. They must not make contact.

But it’s not just Covid that makes these games unusual. There’s confrontation over China’s human rights record. Senior officials from the US, the UK and more than a dozen other governments aren’t going. China’s leaders, and state media, have dismissed the diplomatic boycott as “politicization.”