How to watch the big events at the Winter Olympics

Danny Jones

Don’t miss a second of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics

The 2022 Winter Olympics are about to get underway in Beijing and, lucky for you, we’ll be covering all the biggest action over on SportsJOE, so you won’t miss a second of it.

That being said, if you’ve been wondering when and where are the Winter Olympics going to be shown on TV, don’t worry – we’ve got you sorted there too.

The Olympic torch displayed on a podium in Beijing Olympic Tower (Credit: Getty)

While a handful of events are actually taking place before the start date, the games themselves kick off on Friday, February 4 and run until February 20, with the opening ceremony set to start at 8pm China Standard Time time – 12 noon here in the UK.

How to watch the Winter Olympics 2022

Eurosport and BBC are sharing the coverage of Beijing 2022 in the UK, with BBC Sport broadcasting more than 300 hours of the live events across BBC One and BBC Two, not to mention extra action on iPlayer, Red Button and BBC Sport’s website.

As with the Tokyo 2020 summer games, there will be extensive coverage on Eurosport, the Eurosport Player app and on Discovery Channel’s streaming service, discovery+.

Engineer repairing the TV wall ahead of the Games’ start (Credit: Getty)

What is the time difference?

Beijing’s time zone, AKA China Standard Time – is eight hours ahead of GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), meaning that most days, the majority of the events will be broadcast in Britain during the early hours.

You can find Team GB’s full schedule here but, as a rough guideline, most big events will take place after midnight and up to around 3pm as their latest start time.

Team GB at the Winter Olympics

Great Britain actually get underway way ahead of the opening ceremony on Wednesday, February 2 with the first session of the Mixed Doubles Round Robin Curling against Sweden – the team ranked number one in the world, no less.

(L-R) Bruce Mouat, Grant Hardie, Bobby Lammie, Hammy McMillan, Jen Dodds and Ross Whyte of Team GB’s Winter Olympics curling squad. (Credit: Getty)

When the 2022 Olympics officially get underway following the opening ceremony, there are plenty of winter athletes to watch out for in Team GB‘s travelling squad.

From freestyle skier Gus Kenworthy and snowboarder Katie Ormerod, to curling star Bruce Mouat; landmark Welsh Olympics bronze winner Laura Deas and the UK’s last Winter Olympics gold medallist Lizzy Yarnold, there are plenty of names who are being tipped to bring home glory.

Beijing 2022 controversy

This year’s Winter Olympics, like the upcoming 2022 Qatar World Cup, have come under significant criticism due to the People’s Republic of China and their current human rights record regarding issues such as the ongoing Uyghur genocide.

There was also protesting the last time the Olympics were held in Beijing during the summer of 2008 (Credit: Getty)

The ruling Communist party has been accused of ‘sportswashing’ to detract attention from freedom of expression in the country and Olympians have already been warned they will be under heavy surveillance from the Chinese state while in Beijing.

Nevertheless, while nations including the US, Canada, Australia and the UK have all declared a diplomatic boycott of the games, the world’s greatest winter athletes will still be on show and there will, undoubtedly, be extra eyes focused on this tournament.

"It's a genocide games."

Uyghurs, Tibetans, Hong Kongers and Tigrayans all told us why they need you to boycott the #winterolympics pic.twitter.com/BwVNcySmnh

— PoliticsJOE (@PoliticsJOE_UK) February 3, 2022