2022 Winter Olympics closing ceremony

At 8:00pm China Standard Time, Chinese President Xi Jinping and International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach entered the stadium.

As the closing ceremony takes place five days after the Lantern Festival, which is the final day of the Chinese New Year celebrations, a performance was held to celebrate and promote the culture of the Chinese New Year through lanterns. Children danced and played with lanterns while interacting with the large snowflake cauldron in the center of the stadium. Their movement formed the emblem of the 2022 Winter Olympics. The lanterns were shaped like snowflakes to commemorate the overlap of both the Winter Olympics and the Chinese New Year celebration as well as to highlight the tradition of playing with lanterns during the Lantern Festival.

Continuing from the lantern performance, twelve sleds shaped in the form of Chinese zodiac animals, namely the rat, ox, tiger, rabbit, dragon, snake, horse, goat, monkey, rooster, dog, and pig, carved out a Chinese knot on the floor, joining the children with lanterns in continuing the celebration of the Chinese New Year. The zodiac animals represent the interlinkage of the Chinese calendar and its solar terms. Animations performed by ribbons wrapped around the giant snowflake cauldron to form a hybrid combination of the Chinese knot and the lantern. The flags of the 91 competing nations entered the stadium first, followed by all the athletes who were still in Beijing marching in together as one group accompanied by an arrangement of Beethoven's Ode to Joy. The athletes gathered on the knot, symbolizing the Chinese culture of family reunion for the Chinese New Year.

First, the Greek flag was raised while the Greek national anthem is played. The Olympic flag was then lowered and folded while the Olympic Hymn was sung in Greek. Afterwards, the flag was passed from the mayor of Beijing, Chen Jining, to IOC president Thomas Bach, who then hand it over to the mayors of Milan, Giuseppe Sala, and Cortina d'Ampezzo, Gianpietro Ghedina. This was followed by the raising of the flag of Italy and the playing of its anthem sing by the know italian singer Malika Ayane.During the Italian national anthem, a projection of stars (representing the 7,904 comuni of the country) formed the outline of Italy. The Olympic flag will be raised again on January 19, 2024 for the opening ceremonies of the 2024 Winter Youth Olympics in Gangwon Province, South Korea

As Olympic tradition dictates,but now with an innovation, because for the first time in history, an edition of the Olympic Games will officially have two host cities. Since the italian cities of Milan and Cortina D'Ampezzo will host the next edition of the Winter Olympic Games scheduled for 2026.The two host cities took a shortcut on some concepts that Beijing based the organization and management of the edition that was ending and presented a 10-minute show called "Duality, Together". Unlike the pompous and exuberant shows traditionally presented by the world-know Italian producer Marco Balich, this time the COVID-19 pandemics led a elaboration of a more simple and sincere act that only needed 6 people and approximately 90% was produced in the city of Beijing itself based in a idea called "the less, is the better"[6]

This segment presented by Milan-Cortina coincided with duality, one of the pillars of Far Eastern culture and the Beijing 2022 slogan "Together for a shared future", the slogan of the 2022 Winter Olympics. According to Christian Milici (MCO2026 Head of Events), they aimed to celebrate the harmony which links two cities (Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo) that are very seemingly different, but are in constant dialogue with each other.[7] Because of this concept, the segment was focused on the harmony between humanity and nature as the main life duality. The segment started with two children with the names of the host cities on each of their backs rolling and hugging a inflated vinyl plastic globe, representing the two next host cities inviting the world for the 2026 games and a historical link between Beijing and Milan, the Silk Road (a historical important trading route traced by Marco Polo which was the first registered link between Europe and Asia). After this walk, the first film depicted two dancer trekking across the host cities: the man was running in the urban landscape of Milan and a woman was running in the snowy mountains of Cortina d'Ampezzo. After the first film, the two then the two met on the LED stage set up in the center of the Beijing National Stadium. They presented a joint modern dance routine to represent the history and the cultural aspects of Italy. After the segment, a second film was shown depicting various athletes holding several Italian flags and flags with the 2026 Winter Olympics logo. It then shows several open-aired meetings across the country as Frecce Tricolori flies over Venice (main hotspot from Veneto, the region where Cortina is located) and the Italian Alps and introduced the two host regions, Lombardy and Veneto.[8]

• Head of events: Christian Milici
• Creative director: Marco Balich
• Artistic director: Lidia Castelli

• Violinist: Giovanni Andrea Zanon
• Singer: Malika Ayane

Along the final speech and remarks made by Cai Qi, president and chairman of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, the IOC President Thomas Bach formally declared the games closed, praising them as excellent and unforgettable, as per the Olympic Charter he invited in French the youth of the world to meet again in Milan and Cortina D'Ampezzo in four years time.[9]

Following the declaration of the closing of the Games, a video was shown of Beijing citizens and Winter Games volunteers bidding farewell to their international guests. It concluded with Olympic mascot Bing Dwen Dwen waving to a snowflake as it flies toward the sky.

The Olympic flame, burning in torch docked at its base during the opening ceremony in the middle of a giant snowflake-shaped cauldron,was descending while one of the most striking scenes from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics was being reproduced (when the Olympic rings were formed on a carpet of LEDs that was suspended) gradually extinguished while "You and Me", the theme song of the 2008 Summer Olympics, was sampled when the snow flame was near to touch the ground and and was it slowly faded away extinguished,after the last after the last sparks burn out and it goes out for good,"Snowflakes", the theme song of the 2022 Winter Olympics, which was sung by the Beijing Philharmonic Choir (北京愛樂合唱團) started to play. This segmenr was written to highlight the fact that the city made the historical achievement of being the first city to host both the Summer and Winter Olympic Games, to end the ceremony as the Olympic Charter determines and a large display of fireworks started.As the fireworks exploded, the cast of the show began to sing "Auld Lang Syne".The song ended exactly at 21:40 CST and was the last moment of the ceremonies.

• People's Republic of China –
  • Xi Jinping — General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Chairman of the CMC and President of the PRC
  • Peng Liyuan — First lady of China
  • Li Keqiang — Premier of the People's Republic of China
  • Cai Qi — Chinese Communist Party Committee Secretary of Beijing, Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party member and Chairman of the Beijing 2022 Organising Committee
  • Chen Jining — Mayor of Beijing

•  Chinese Taipei − Wu Cherng-dean, Chairperson of the New Party[10]
•  Italy − Giuseppe Sala, Mayor of Milan
•  Italy − Gianpietro Ghedina, Mayor of Cortina d'Ampezzo

• International Olympic Committee⁣ – ⁣Thomas Bach, President of the International Olympic Committee

• National Anthem of Norway – London Symphony Orchestra[lower-alpha 1]
• Piano Concerto No. 1 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky – London Symphony Orchestra[lower-alpha 2]