During the Parade of Nations within the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics opening ceremony on February 4, athletes and officials from each participating country marched in the Beijing National Stadium preceded by their flag and placard bearer bearing the respective country's name. Each flag bearer was chosen either by the nation's National Olympic Committee or by the team of athletes themselves.
Athletes entered the stadium in an order dictated by the Olympic tradition. As the originator of the Olympics, the Greek team entered first. [1]
Countries marched in order of the Chinese language. [2] The collation method used was based on the names as written in Simplified Chinese characters and is similar to that used in Chinese dictionaries. The names were sorted by the number of strokes in the first character of the name, then by the stroke order of the character (in the order 橫竖撇捺折, c.f. Wubi method), then the number of strokes and stroke order of the second character, then next character and so on. [3] For example, this placed San Marino (圣马力诺) in 28th position, just ahead of Kyrgyzstan (吉尔吉斯斯坦) because the initial character for "San Marino" ( 圣 ) is written in 5 strokes, while that for "Kyrgyzstan" ( 吉 ) is written in 6 strokes.
The country that will host the next Winter Olympics, Italy, marched before the host nation China entered, instead of entering between New Zealand and Serbia, according to the Chinese collation order. [4]
As part of its doping penalty, Russia competes under the acronym "ROC" and the flag of the Russian Olympic Committee, and the name of the committee in full cannot be used to refer to the delegation.
Announcers in the stadium read off the names of the marching nations in Mandarin Chinese (the official language of the host country), English and French (the official languages of the Olympics) with music accompanying the athletes as they marched into the stadium.
According to the current version of the Olympic Charter, each nation had the option of having two flag bearers (a man and a woman) in an effort to promote gender equality.
The following is a list of each country's flag bearer. The list is sorted by the sequence that each nation appeared in the Parade of Nations. [5] The names are given in their official designations by the IOC, and the Chinese names follow their official designations by the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.
Japan competed at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China, from 4 to 20 February 2022.
Armenia competed at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China, from 4 to 20 February 2022.
Australia competed at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China, from 4 to 20 February 2022.
Austria competed at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China, from 4 to 20 February 2022.
Belgium competed at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China, from 4 to 20 February 2022.
Belarus competed at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China, from 4 to 20 February 2022.
Croatia competed at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China, from 4 to 20 February 2022.
Estonia competed at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China, from 4 to 20 February 2022. Estonian team consisted of 26 athletes.
Hungary competed at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China, from 4 to 20 February 2022.
Kazakhstan competed at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China, from 4 to 20 February 2022.
Thailand competed at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China, from 4 to 20 February 2022.
Turkey competed at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China, from 4 to 20 February 2022.
Ukraine competed at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China, from 4 to 20 February 2022, in its eighth appearance as an independent nation.
The Philippines competed at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China, from 4 to 20 February 2022. The country qualified one athlete in alpine skiing.
Hong Kong, a special administrative region (SAR) of the People's Republic of China, competed at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China, from 4 to 20 February 2022. The delegation competed under the formal name Hong Kong, China. This was the SAR's sixth appearance at a Winter Olympic Games, since its first appearance in 2002.
Madagascar competed at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China, from 4 to 20 February 2022.
Azerbaijan competed at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China, from 4 to 20 February 2022.
The Republic of China, commonly known as "Taiwan", competed as Chinese Taipei at the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China from 4 to 20 February 2022. Because of the political status of Taiwan and the One-China policy, the ROC national symbols will not be used as stipulated in the Nagoya Resolution in 1979 forcing the ROC athletes to compete under the Chinese Taipei moniker since 1984.
During the closing ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China the flag bearers of 91 National Olympic Committees (NOCs) arrived into Beijing National Stadium on February 20. The flag bearers from each participating country entered the stadium informally in single file, and behind them marched all the athletes. The flags of each country were not necessarily carried by the same flag bearer as in the opening ceremony.
During the Parade of Nations within the Beijing 2022 Winter Paralympics opening ceremony on March 4, athletes and officials from each participating country marched in the Beijing National Stadium, preceded by their flag and placard bearer bearing the respective country's name. Each flag bearer was chosen either by the nation's National Paralympic Committee or by the team of athletes themselves.
The JOC also named speed skater Arisa Go and Nordic combined skier Akito Watabe as flagbearers for the opening ceremony of the Feb. 4-20 games.
 Olympic Games national flag bearers by year | |
|---|---|
| Summer Olympics | |
| Winter Olympics | |
| Intercalated Games | |
| Summer Youth Olympics | |
| Winter Youth Olympics | |
