Opinion | Winter Games are snow joke for Asia’s off-piste ambitions but will China save face on the slopes when it hosts in 2022?

Otherwise, the table is a list of the usual suspects: France, Austria, Switzerland and so on – the alpine aristocracy.

Nestling in ninth position in the table was China (only nine medals, of which six may be golds). In one sense, this is hardly surprising as the country certainly isn’t a member of this aristocracy, nor is it traditionally associated with winter sports.

For a country in which maintaining face is so important and for which sport appears to be such a crucial component of its economic and geopolitical development, the potentially lacklustre display of its athletes in Pyeongchang does not seem to bode well for China. With this in mind, it therefore seems odd that, once the flag goes down at the conclusion of the event in South Korea, it will next appear in Beijing for the start of the 2022 edition of the Games.

In many ways, the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing was modern China’s global coming-out party, while President Xi’s desire to host football’s World Cup would confirm the country’s ascent to the world’s top table. But by comparison, the reasons for staging the 2022 Olympics are much less clear.

Admittedly, it is one of the world’s largest sports events and is therefore consistent with China’s new-found international muscularity. At the same time, the event is less compelling and lacks the kudos of its summer counterpart, leading one to ask – why is China doing this?