It’s hard to say what was most distressing about the opening days of the Beijing Winter Olympics.

The lament of the athletes “injured” by the swabs inserted into their noses for Covid testing?

French speed skater Gwendoline Daudet’s anguish under the bubble after she was eliminated from the mixed relay?

The embarrassing spectacle of Uighur skier Dinigeer Yilamujiang lighting the snowflake-shaped Olympic cauldron under the gaze of Xi Jinping, an image that the spokespersons of the International Olympic Committee found “charming”?

The fact that, unlike in Berlin in 1936 or Moscow in 1980, the matter of a boycott was scarcely mentioned, as “it was...