Beijing hands the Olympic flag to Milan-Cortina on Sunday after a Games that will be remembered for the extremes of its anti-Covid-19 measures and outrage over the doping scandal that enveloped 15-year-old Russian skating sensation Kamila Valieva.

The Olympics were stalked by politics, with several countries staging a diplomatic boycott over China's human rights record, and the spectre of invasion of Ukraine by Russia, with President Vladimir Putin attending the opening ceremony in a show of solidarity against the West with President Xi Jinping.