HOW TO WATCH THE 2022 WINTER OLYMPICS in Beijing: NBC & Peacock

By Jim Gilles

Los Angeles, CA (The Hollywood Times) 2/4/22 – The 2022 Winter Olympics officially begin with the Opening Ceremony on Friday, February 4, and run through Sunday, February 20 in Beijing, China. However, the competition has already started with early rounds of curling on Wednesday, February 2, two days before the Opening Ceremony. For the second consecutive Winter Games and third overall, NBC will broadcast its primetime Olympic show live across all time zones.  Each night on NBC:  Monday – Friday: 8:00 pm ET   Sunday: 7:00 pm ET

On 4 February 2022, the Olympic cauldron will be ignited, signaling the start of the Olympics Winter Games Beijing 2022. The events of the Olympics Winter Games Beijing 2022 will take place in a combination of brand-new structures and existing venues. With Beijing being in the unique position as the first city to host both Summer and Winter editions of the Olympics, several venues from the 2008 Summer will be reused for the 2022 Winter Olympics as part of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIV Olympiad’s (BOCOG) Sustainability Plan. Similar to the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, the 2022 Beijing Olympics will not allow international fans to attend the games.

The venues for the Winter Games in 2022 have been divided into three zones, or clusters: Beijing, Yanqing, and Zhangjiakou. Here, we take a more detailed look at every competition venue for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, as well as the Olympic Villages that the athletes will call home during their stay in China. Located in central Beijing, this cluster around the National Stadium will primarily stage the ice sports of the Winter Olympics, as well as the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Games. Also known as “The Bird’s Nest” due to its unique design, this iconic stadium hosted the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, as well as the athletics competition and men’s football final of the Summer Games.

The National Speed Skating Oval is the only new venue built on Beijing’s Olympic Green (the Olympic Park constructed for the 2008 Games) for the Winter Olympics. The stadium was built on the site of the Olympic Green Hockey Field used for field hockey events and the Olympic Green Archery Field used for the archery event at the 2008 Olympics. The Capital Indoor Stadium will stage the figure skating and short track speed skating competitions during the Winter Olympics.

Arguably the most unique venue of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics is Big Air Shougang, which has been built on a former steel mill site, set against the backdrop of four industrial cooling towers. It is the world’s first permanent venue for Big Air, and will stage the freestyle skiing and snowboard Big Air competitions at the Games. Following the Winter Olympics, the venue will be used for various sports competitions and athlete training, as well as cultural and civic events.

Yanqing Zone: Located 75 kilometres northwest of Beijing’s city center, Yanqing is a mountainous suburb of China’s capital filled with hot springs, national parks, ski resorts, and the Badaling section of the Great Wall of China. Yanqing’s Olympic venues will stage the alpine skiing events as well as the sliding events: bobsled, luge, and skeleton.

Alpine Skiing at the 2022 Winter Olympics begins on Saturday, February 5, with the Men’s Downhill event (10:00 p.m. ET on NBC and Peacock). The competition will take place at the National Alpine Ski Center in Yanqing located roughly 45 miles northwest of Beijing.

Zhangjiakou Zone: Zhangjiakou is a popular Chinese ski destination approximately 180 kilometres northwest of Beijing. The newly constructed Beijing-Zhangjiakou intercity railway will transfer guests between all three venue clusters for the Winter Olympics in just one hour. Zhangjiakou’s venues will stage the majority of the ski and snowboarding events at the 2022 Winter Games, including freestyle, cross-country, ski jumping, Nordic combined, and biathlon. The National Biathlon Centre, located in Zhangjiakou City in north China’s Hebei Province, will stage the biathlon competition.

Beijing Venue                           Events

One of the sport’s brightest stars Mikaela Shiffrin (from Edwards, Colorado), a three-time Olympic medalist (two gold), three-time overall World Cup champion, and six-time world champion. The 26-year-old is a once-in-a-generation skier and is expected to be a gold medal threat in any event that she enters. She’s expressed interest in competing in five alpine events in Beijing, calling it “a very aggressive game plan.” Depending on how many events she enters, Shiffrin could tie or break the record for most Olympic alpine skiing medals at a single Games (4). The current record was set in 2002 by Croatia’s Janica Kostelic.

Day-by-day TV viewing guide to the Beijing Winter Games

*All time is listed as ET. Times are subject to change.

Wednesday, February 2 (Day -2):

• The Beijing Winter Olympics kick off with early rounds of mixed doubles curling. Watch as pairs from the U.S. take on Australia and Italy
• When: 6:00 p.m. & 8:05 p.m. on USA Network

Thursday, February 3 (Day -1):

•  2018 Olympic team bronze medalist Nathan Chen (Salt Lake City, Utah) will make his Beijing debut as the figure skating team event commences.
• When: 8 p.m. on NBC and Peacock
  

Friday, February 4 (Day 0):

• The Opening Ceremony begins at 6:30 a.m. ET on NBC and Peacock. There will be a full day of unprecedented coverage, click here for the full schedule of events.
• When: 6:30 a.m on NBC and Peacock

Saturday, February 5 (Day 1):

• Canada’s Mikael Kingsbury–arguably the most dominant athlete in any Winter Olympic sport–competes in the Men’s Moguls Final. Kingsbury is the defending Olympic gold medalist, a 3-time world champion, and 9-time overall World Cup champion.
  • When: 6:30 a.m. on NBC and USA Network
• Two-time Olympic slopestyle gold medalist Jamie Anderson (South Lake Tahoe, California) could become the first snowboarder to win 3 straight Olympic gold medals.
  • When: 8:30 p.m. on NBC and USA Network

Sunday, February 6 (Day 2):

• Three-time Olympic medalist Mikaela Shiffrin (Edwards, Colorado) will have her first medal chance in Beijing competing in Women’s Giant Slalom. Shiffrin is the defending Olympic gold medalist in this event and may be competing in as many as five events in Beijing.
  • When: 9:15 p.m. ET on USA Network
• Red Gerard (Silverthorne, Colorado) looks to go back-to-back in snowboard slopestyle. Gerard became snowboarding’s youngest Olympic gold medalist in this event at the 2018 PyeongChang Games.
  • When: 11:00 p.m. on NBC

Monday, February 7 (Day 3):

• After a disastrous short program erased his medal chances in 2018, three-time reigning world champion Nathan Chen (Salt Lake City, Utah) will begin his road to redemption.
  • When: 8:15 p.m. on NBC and Peacock
• China’s Eileen Gu the reigning world champion in halfpipe and slopestyle who was born in San Francisco to an American father and Chinese mother, will have her first medal opportunity in Beijing in the Women’s Big Air Final.
  • When: 9:00 p.m. on NBC and Peacock
• The U.S. women’s hockey team takes on Canada in the preliminary round for a new chapter in one of the biggest rivalries in winter sports (of six gold medals ever awarded in women’s hockey, five have been won by either the U.S. or Canada).
  • When: 12:15 a.m. on USA Network

Tuesday, February 8 (Day 4):

• Mikaela Shiffrin (Edwards, Colorado) will race in one of her signature events: Women’s Slalom. This could be Shiffrin’s 2nd of as many as 5 opportunities to win an individual medal in Beijing.
  • When: 9:15 p.m. on NBC and Peacock
• Chloe Kim (Torrance, California) and three-time Olympic gold medalist Shaun White (Carlsbad, California) compete in snowboard halfpipe qualifying. Kim is the defending Olympic gold medalist and two-time reigning world champion in the women’s event.
  • When: 8:30 p.m. and 11:30 p.m. on NBC and Peacock

Wednesday, February 9 (Day 5):

• Chloe Kim (Torrance, California) looks for the repeat gold in the women’s halfpipe final.
• Nathan Chen (Salt Lake City, Utah), competing in the Men’s Free Skate, will look for redemption in Beijing after finishing 5th in PyeongChang.
• When: 8:00 p.m. on NBC and Peacock

Thursday, February 10 (Day 6)

• 35-year-old Shaun White (Carlsbad, California) looks to compete in the men’s halfpipe final, attempting to become the first athlete in any sport at the Olympic Winter Games to win 4 gold medals in the same individual event (although two other athletes competing in Beijing also have the chance to hit that milestone).
  • When: 8:30 p.m. on NBC and Peacock
• Mikaela Shiffrin (Edwards, Colorado) will have another possible medal opportunity in the Women’s Super-G.
  • When: 10:00 p.m. on NBC and Peacock

Friday, February 11 (Day 7)

• Mixed Team Snowboard Cross–one of four new mixed-gender events on the 2022 program–will make its highly anticipated Olympic debut.
  • When: 9:15 p.m on NBC and Peacock
• Competing in the Women’s 1000m, Kristen Santos (Fairfield, Connecticut) will attempt to win the first medal for U.S. women in short track since 2010.
  • When: 10:15 p.m. on NBC and Peacock

Saturday, February 12 (Day 8)

• At 37-years-old, Katie Uhlaender (Breckenridge, Colorado) will compete in Women’s Skeleton.
  Beijing marks the 37-year-olds fifth Olympic Games. Uhlaender narrowly missed a medal at the 2014 Sochi Games finishing four one-hundredths of a second behind the eventual bronze medalist.
• Monobob will make its Olympic debut with Kaillie Humphries (Calgary, Alberta) as the U.S.’s top contender. Humphries, a two-time Olympic champion in two-woman, will be competing in her first Games as a U.S. citizen.
• When: 8:00 p.m. on NBC and Peacock

Sunday, February 13 (Day 9)

• Speed skater Erin Jackson (Ocala, Florida) will compete in the Women’s 500m. In 2018, Jackson became the first Black woman to make the U.S. Olympic long track speed skating team after just four months of serious on-ice training.
  • When: 8:55 a.m. on NBC and Peacock
• After Super Bowl LVI (6:30 p.m. on NBC), Kaillie Humphries (Calgary, Alberta) will attempt to make history by winning the first-ever gold medal in women’s monobob.
• In Ice Dance, the U.S. has two teams that can contend for a medal–Madison Hubbell (Lansing, Michigan)/Zach Donohue (Hartford, Connecticut) and Madison Chock (Redondo Beach, California) /Evan Bates (Ann Arbor, Michigan).
• When: 10:45 p.m. on NBC and Peacock