what flag is this?

What kind of small flag was the British team waving in their hands while walking in the winter Olympics opening ceremony? It looks like a quarter section of the union jack. Does it represent anything other than Britain? Has it been used before? I searched but didn't find any info on it.

This article has a photo that shows it - the athletes at the top of the photo behind the main flag bearers are holding the small flags:

https://e3.365dm.com/22/02/2048x1152/skynews-winter-olympics-beijing_5662490.jpg


Edited to add at 1:44pm:

Yesterday while searching about that unfamiliar flag, I came across this:
Welsh dragon and St George's cross barred from Olympics as Chinese ban 'propaganda' flags

At the time, that article didn't seem related to me. But this morning after waking up, it occurred to me, is the team using this quarter-union-jack in protest at not being able to show the individual countries' flags? A quarter-union-jack could represent one the 4 countries in the U.K., but if everyone on the team is waving the same quarter flag it's ambiguous enough that China can't claim...

Aha! Now that I look at the above photo more closely, some of the quarter flags have the red horizontal bar on top, and some on the bottom. Simply coincidence, or not? My web searches on the topic still aren't having any success.

Maybe news outlets are purposely not reporting on it, so as to keep it under China's radar?

Update, 2022/02/27
I still didn't find a definitive answer, but I did find someone else curious about the same thing:
Great Britain Question: small flags are one quarter of the Union Jack?

This photo (from this Team GB tweet) has great detail and shows the small white round design on the small quarter flags is a "Team GB" logo. The flags in this photo all have the red bar at the top, not the bottom. But this image still seems to show one flag with the red bar at the bottom.

Team GB's outfits were designed by company Ben Sherman. It's possible the small flags were designed simply to look good, matching with the team's sweaters, which also show only a portion of the flag. But it is still an odd thing to do for an actual country's flag, small or big, versus a flag design being put on clothing or other merchandise.

Olympic team outfits

Some interesting tidbits I came across.

Team GB's Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics kit is made from recycled ocean plastic


Winter Olympics 2022: Team outfits and the brands who designed them

Regarding the U.S. team's outfit:
The most interesting feature of the jacket is its Intelligent Insulation technology, which is battery or wired tech that expands or contracts the fabric with temperature change. This allows the wearer to extend the use of the anorak.

(But see below article which indicates the jacket does *not* require batteries and wires.)

Regarding the Chinese outfit:
China also unveiled a uniform with self-heating thermal underwear

What is that?, I wondered. Here is one page that explains it:
SKIINCore, the self-heating underwear that is going to revolutionise winter


Of all the outfits shown in this article, the Kazakh one looks the best to me, a nice light blue/white/black color combination and neat design across the chest. It looks very stylish and pretty to me!
For that matter, the Kazakh flag is pretty too, with a yellow sun and flying bird on a light blue sky, and that same neat design on the edge.

Here's how Team USA's Olympic Opening Ceremony outfits were made

The jackets include a built in smart, honeycomb-like fabric layer that expands or contracts in response to temperature changes — all without the use of a battery or wired technology, they said.

The fashion company said this allows the apparel to have the ability to transition through three-seasons, and from indoor to outdoor environments, which eliminates the need for multiple garments.

Here's what Canada and Mexico wore during the Olympic Opening Ceremony

Mexico's jacket has a (candy) skull image on front which was striking enough that after glimpsing it, I rewound the DVR to see it again.

Canada's outfit includes a puffy-sectioned insulated scarf which looks like it must be very nice and warm. But seeing it worn by the athletes along with their jackets and all else, it looked bulky and awkward to me. But gotta say, they did look warm! And from the group photo shown on this page, it looks like they have a lot of choices on what to wear.

technology and special effects

When watching things like the Olympics opening ceremonies (and also various music competition TV shows with a lot of special effects) in the last decade or more, I can't tell how much of it (if any) is computer generated graphics which are only visible on the TV screen, versus what is being shown and seen by the participants in person.

The giant LED screen on the field of the birds-nest stadium, I can understand. I still wonder how much more (or less) wondrous it looks in person. How clear is it? How real? Does it look pixelated up close? Is it real enough to seem like you're looking over a cliff?

But other parts like the "ice cube", I can't even figure out. Is it something physical or not? What do the people in the stadium see? It is a cube of LED screens that rises out of the floor? Is it a cube of glass that has images projected into/onto it? Or is it only a 2-D image on the floor which looks like 3-D from a certain angle? I need to know, in order to be able to appreciate it! Otherwise it seems like just any other special effect in a movie.

Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics Opening Ceremony: One World, One Family

A virtual ice cube emerges from the stadium floor, where 24 laser beams carve and engrave the names of the 24 previous Olympic Winter Games hosts before projecting the name of Beijing 2022.
...
A projection display shows previous Winter Olympic games information during the Opening Ceremony...

What does that mean? What is a virtual ice cube? Are the laser beams real or virtual too? If they are real, what are they pointed at, and how does it work? The next part calls it a projection display, but still, where is the video explaining how it is all done? Maybe I should be doing YouTube searches.

Even the Olympic rings leave me guessing. I guess they are made of some kind of translucent plastic or glass, and are hanging from wires? They are at least a real physical object, right?