The Winter Olympics kick off in Beijing on Friday, and Google is joining the celebration with an animated Doodle that showcases some of the events spectators can expect to see, as demonstrated by six adorable animals, including a snowboarding leopard, an ice dancing rabbit and a curling mouse.
The Games will take place over 16 days, with the opening ceremony being held on Friday and the closing ceremony following on Feb. 20. This year’s Olympics will feature 109 events, seven more than were at PyeongChang in 2018, including a women-only bobsled event called monobob, mixed team aerials in freestyle skiing and mixed team snowboard cross, which features several athletes competing on the same course at the same time.
This year’s Games have already been complicated by a handful of issues, including keeping athletes and fans safe during the pandemic and a diplomatic boycott of the Games by the US, Australia, Britain and Canada over China’s human rights violations. This will also mark the first time athletes will compete almost entirely on artificial snow, thanks largely to the climate crisis.
Beijing is 13 hours ahead of the US Eastern time zone, so evening events will air live in the morning US time. NBC is airing the Games on your local NBC broadcast channel, its Peacock streaming service, NBCOlympics.com and NBCSports.com. Sling TV, YouTube TV and Hulu Plus Live TV will also broadcast Olympics events.
Here’s the full schedule of events.
