China crafts a carefully curated slate of Olympic spectators

BEIJING (AP) — A spectator’s single clap echoed through the mostly empty National Aquatics Center after the British curling team knocked a Swiss stone out of position, a difficult move that usually would trigger cheers from fans.

The spectator looked around at the audience of about 200, surrounded by thousands of vacant seats, and stopped clapping.

Halfway through ten sets of curling, as teams shouted in Russian, Norwegian, Swedish, French, Dutch and Italian, the crowd shrank further when more than half stood up and left for another event: The souvenir shop had opened.

Skiing, skating and the other competitions take place before a global TV audience, but limited crowds see them in person after China, which is enforcing strict anti-virus controls, decided against selling tickets or allowing spectators to come from abroad.

Instead, organizers said they would invite 150,000 people including schoolchildren, diplomats, businesspeople and what the organizing committee called “winter sports enthusiasts.” This was somewhat of a departure from the Tokyo Games last summer, where pandemic protocols kept most venues all but empty.

An Associated Press journalist was among a handful of Beijing-based reporters invited by the Foreign Ministry to watch the curling on Monday.

Organizers have given few details, but foreign chambers of commerce and employees of companies that are Olympic sponsors said they received invitations to the Feb. 4 opening ceremony.

People who attended the ceremony and sports events were required to receive a third dose of an anti-coronavirus vaccine as a booster, present two negative virus tests before events and take two more tests afterward.

Joerg Wuttke, president of the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China, said he was invited but couldn’t attend...