China just turned a pair of Olympic venues into a playground for robots.

The inaugural World Humanoid Robot Games, running from Aug. 15-17, opened Friday with soccer, sprints, kickboxing and table tennis , as well as a healthy number of face-plants. The games feature 280 robot teams from 16 countries and hundreds of bipedal bots vying for medals and whatever passes for bragging rights to robots.

Events are split between two 2022 Winter Olympics landmarks: China's National Stadium and the National Speed Skating Oval. On the schedule: track and field, football (soccer to Americans), table tennis, and "scenario" trials such as medicine sorting, cleaning services and industrial handling—the kind of practical skills that robot-makers actually care about.

Humanoid robots compete in the 5 vs

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