The US has announced a diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, China.
The White House said no official delegation would be sent to the Games because of concerns about China's human rights record.
But it said US athletes could attend and would have the government's full support.
China has previously said it will take "resolute countermeasures" in the event of a boycott.
US President Joe Biden said last month that he was weighing up a diplomatic boycott of the event.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki confirmed the boycott on Monday, saying that the administration would not contribute to the "fanfare" of the Olympics.
"US diplomatic or official representation would treat these games as business as usual in the face of the PRC's
egregious human rights abuses and atrocities in Xinjiang," she said. "We simply can't do that."The Biden administration's diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics falls far short of a previous US boycott in 1980, when it pulled its athletes out of the Moscow Olympics to protest against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan the previous year.
The Soviet Union and its allies, in turn, boycotted the following 1984 Summer Olympics held in Los Angeles.
