Winter Olympics: All You Need to Know about Beijing 2022

After a troubled and controversial build-up, the 2022 Winter Olympics are about to get under way in Beijing.

Almost 3,000 athletes from 91 nations will compete to get their hands on one of 109 gold medals on offer across seven sports.

Although live sport started on Wednesday with mixed doubles curling, the opening ceremony takes place on Friday, marking the official start of the 24th Winter Games.

"The world is turning its eyes to China and China is ready. We will do our best to deliver to the world a streamlined, safe and splendid Games," Chinese President Xi Jinping said on Thursday.

But these are already controversial Olympics, with protests and diplomatic boycotts over alleged human rights abuses, while the Covid-19 pandemic continues to have an impact with strict control measures in place.

Here's everything you need to know.

The facts of Beijing

Beijing is the first city to host both the summer and winter Games, 14 years after it hosted the 2008 summer Olympics.

The event takes place across three clusters. Beijing itself will host the indoor events - curling, speed skating, figure skating and ice hockey - as well as the big air and the opening and closing ceremonies.

Yanqing, located 75km (47 miles) out of Beijing, is the home of the sliding sports - bobsleigh, skeleton and luge - and alpine skiing, while the mountains of Zhangjiakou, 180km (111 miles) away from the Chinese capital, host the freestyle skiing and snowboarding events, ski jumping, biathlon and cross-country.

Many of the venues in Beijing from the 2008 Games have been repurposed, including swimming's Water Cube, which has been renovated to become the home of curling, and the Bird's Nest stadium, which will host the opening and closing ceremonies.

Artificial snow has been used across all venues - although there was some natural snowfall in Zhangjiakou in the week leading up to the Games. It is estimated that 49m gallons (222.8m litres) of water have been used to produce the fake snow in Yanqing alone.

But that isn't a concern for GB's athletes, with snowboarder Katie Ormerod telling BBC Sport: "I grew up in the UK so it's all artificial snow."