The Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics is at 11.00pm AEDT time this evening so make yourself an espresso and get ready to ride.
Aussie flag bearers, Laura Peel and Brendan Kerry will lead a team of 18 athletes marching in the event.
They will be joined by Brendan Corey (ice skating), Kailani Craine (figure skating), Dean Hewitt (curling), Nick Timmings (skeleton), bobsledders Bree Walker, Kiara Reddingius and Sarah Blizzard, Snowboard Cross athletes Belle Brockhoff, Adam Lambert, Adam Dickson, Josie Baff, Cam Bolton and Cross Country athletes Phil Bellingham, Seve de Campo, Hugo Hinckfuss and Lars Young Vik.
You’ll be staying up later than you think though, Greece leads the nations and Australia will enter the stadium at number 89 in the Parade of Nations followed by Italy (host or next Olympics in 2026) and then the host nation, China.
Beijing 2022 organisers chose the sequence of the entrance by teams at the opening ceremony based on the number of strokes in the Chinese characters in the transliteration of their name. The Chinese character for “Au” has the most strokes in all the country names.
