In Kyrgyzstan, the pre-games social media noise was largely indignation over how much better Kazakhstan’s outfits appeared. The Kyrgyz jackets do not look like potato sacks, insisted officials, who said they had been supplied free of charge. In any case, Kyrgyzstan’s lone sportsman, skier Maksim Gordeyev, appeared in a different outfit altogether during the ceremony. Their ice fresh, blue, black and white ceremony outfits feature eye-catching nomadic patterns and – for the first time in Olympic history – the word “Qazaqstan,” the country’s name in Kazakh Latin script. Whatever they achieve, Kazakhstan’s athletes are in a good place aesthetically. On January 17 he left his position as head of the influential Atameken business lobby in Kazakhstan and is reportedly unlikely to retain his position as a non-executive director on the board of the Russian state energy giant Gazprom. It was not immediately clear if Nursultan Nazarbayev’s billionaire son-in-law, Timur Kulibayev, had attended the event in Beijing. Kulibayev is chair of the National Olympic Committee but finds himself out of favor at home and abroad as the post-crisis reconfiguration of Kazakhstan’s elite continues apace. A poor showing at last year’s summer games and President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s promise of a bold new era make a podium finish or two highly desirable. Mogul skier Yulia Galysheva, a bronze medalist at the 2018 edition in Pyeongchang seems the best bet for a medal. Kazakhstan’s sporting delegation is the only large one from Central Asia, consisting of 34 athletes. The presidential residence, where visiting dignitaries might well have been received, was the site of a bloody battle. When those demonstrations escalated into lethal clashes and looting last month, it was Almaty that saw the worst of the devastation. Instead of ringing in 2022 in anticipation of what would have been its most prestigious, expensive sporting showpiece to date, Kazakhstan was rocked by protests. At the turn of the millennium trade stood at just $1.5 billion, according to the state-run People’s Daily.ĬCTV reported that apart from the opening ceremony, leaders were expected to attend a welcome banquet and "relevant bilateral activities.”Īround 20 heads of state confirmed their participation, along with the general secretaries of the United Nations and the World Health Organization. Many western countries refused to send diplomatic delegations in protest of China's human rights abuses in its majority-Muslim Xinjiang region.įor many watching at home in Kazakhstan, the question is “what if?”īusiness capital Almaty missed out on the chance to host these games by a mere four votes back in 2015. Last month he held a virtual heads of state summit marking three decades of China’s diplomatic relations with the region. During the January 25 event, the Chinese leader said he aims to nearly double turnover with Central Asia to reach $70 billion by 2030. Since the pandemic began, Xi has not set foot outside China. For Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, it was a hard-fought draw. Only Kazakhstan produced a large Olympic team. In the cases of Turkmenistan and Tajikistan, the presidents outnumbered athletes. No other region in the world was as solidly represented by its heads of state at the dazzling February 4 opening ceremony in Beijing’s "Bird's Nest" stadium. Face time with Chinese President Xi Jinping, the region’s top hope for trade and investment, is too precious. (Kazakh government handout)Ĭentral Asia’s leaders were never going to join a diplomatic boycott of Beijing’s showpiece Winter Olympics. The Kazakh delegation is the largest from Central Asia.
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