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What is the marching order for the Closing Ceremony at the Winter Olympics?

Greece traditionally leads the parade, regardless of its place in the alphabet, because that is where the Olympics originated. The host country enters last.

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BEIJING, China — Just like the Opening Ceremony, this year's Closing Ceremony at the Beijing Winter Olympics featured a parade of nations, where flag bearers from all the competing countries marched into Beijing's "Bird's Nest" stadium.

Historically, Greece -- the birthplace of the Olympics -- is always the first country to march into the Olympic venue of the host nation. The host country -- in this case China -- is the last nation to march out.

The International Olympic Committee recently changed the rules to have the hosts of the next Olympics enter right before the host nation. Italy will welcome the world for the Winter Games in 2026, so its flag-bearer entered before the Chinese.

All other flag bearers then march out in alphabetical order based on the host country's official language. Because Chinese uses characters instead of an alphabet, the order for the Opening and Closing ceremonies was determined based on stroke order of the first character of the nation's name in Chinese.

That's why this year viewers saw the flag of Turkey come out second as opposed to that of Albania's, which would have been the one to follow Greece if the Olympics were hosted in an English-speaking country.

While there were flags representing the 91 nations who competed at the Olympics, more than a third of those were actually carried out by a volunteer and not an athlete from the respective country. In most cases, this is because the athletes from these nations had earlier completed their competitions and headed home before the Closing Ceremony.

For the Beijing Closing Ceremony, the flag bearers also came out in two separate lines. With Greece leading half the group in order, while China led the remaining half in reverse order.

Credit: AP

Flag bearers walk into the stadium for the closing ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics, Sunday, Feb. 20, 2022, in Beijing. (AP Photo/Natacha Pisarenko)

Bobsledder Elana Meyers Taylor was tapped as Team USA's flagbearer after she missed her original opportunity to do so during the Opening Ceremony because of a positive COVID test.

After the flag bearers proceeded into the stadium, it was time for the rest of the athletes still in Beijing to head on in. There didn't appear to be any specific order for when the larger groups walked in.

Closing Ceremony Flag Bearer Country Order for Winter Olympics

Credit: AP

Members of team United States pose during the closing ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics, Sunday, Feb. 20, 2022, in Beijing. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)