The New Zealand team are bracing for a heavily reduced and very different looking opening ceremony at the Winter Olympics.
The team will be led into Beijing's National Stadium by skiers Alice Robinson and Finn Bilous, as the second Olympic Games in eight months officially get underway.
Robinson's been flying the Kiwi flag around the alpine skiing world for some years now and on Saturday, she'll don the traditional Te Māhutonga - the New Zealand team's Kākahu (cloak) and carry it on behalf of her country, as she joins Bilous in leading the Kiwis into the Beijing 2022 opening ceremony.
"It's a huge honour to be named flag bearer, especially from such an awesome legacy of flag bearers from New Zealand," Robinson says. "It's a real privilege."
It will be the first time a New Zealand team is led into a Winter Olympics opening ceremony by a male and female as joint flag bearers.
Robinson recalls beaming with pride, when she was announced flagbearer at the Yanqing Olympic Village on Thursday.
"I just felt really honoured when I found out and told the family, and they were all super excited for me."
COVID-19 protocols, the sparse distance between the three zones, and early competition on Saturday means it will be a reduced team at the ceremony.
But NZ chef de mission Marty Toomey is comfortable the protocols in place will ensure those involved are protected.
"It will be different, there's no doubt about that," says Toomey. "A lot of people are very cautious and so the numbers marching will be a lot less, but I have no doubt those who are marching will feel the pride."
Full team or not, it will make no difference for Robinson and Bilous.
Bilous says simply taking part in an Olympic opening ceremony - with the silver fern on his chest, and wearing the NZ team uniform - is certain to be a feeling like no other.
"Last Olympics, that was the moment I realised the scale and magnitude of this event, and just how different it is to everything we've done in the past," he says.
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