Beijing’s Olympics close, ending safe but odd global moment

By TED ANTHONY
AP National Writer

BEIJING (AP) — A pile of figure-skating rubble created by Russian misbehavior. A new Chinese champion — from California. An ace American skier who faltered and went home empty-handed. The end of the Olympic line for the world’s most renowned snowboarder. All inside an anti-COVID “closed loop” enforced by China’s authoritarian government. The terrarium of a Winter Games that has been Beijing 2022 is winding to its end. It caps an unprecedented Asian Olympic trifecta and sends the planet’s most global sporting event off to the West for the foreseeable future with no chance of returning to this corner of the world until at least 2030.