Green, sustainable Beijing Olympics to reinvigorate the world

The official opening of the Beijing Winter Olympics will be on February 4, 2022. The successful holding of the Games will boost confidence of the world, which is still suffering from the COVID-19 pandemic.

It is but natural that professional athletes and amateurs all over the world want a wonderful, extraordinary, outstanding Winter Olympic Games. Shortly after winning the bid to stage the Games on July 31, 2015, Beijing 2022 pledged to hold the Games in a green, inclusive, open and clean manner. Beijing Winter Olympics will be held in 25 different venues located in Beijing competition zone, Yanqing competition zone and Zhangjiakou competition zone. The newly built venues are the National Speed Skating Oval in Beijing competition zone, the National Alpine Skiing Centre and the National Sliding Centre in Yanqing competition zone and the National Ski Jumping Centre, the National Biathlon Centre, the National Cross-Country Centre and the Genting Snow Park in Zhangjiakou competition zone. All the venues are ready for the Games.

Beijing Winter Olympics will be a “triple place and dual city” Games. The Beijing competition zone is respectively away from the Yanqing competition zone and the Zhangjiakou competition zone by 75 and 188 kilometers. The 174-kilometer high-speed rail link between Beijing and Zhangjiakou launched service in December 2019, taking only 20 minutes from Beijing to Yanqing and 30 minutes from Yanqing to Zhangjiakou.

Beijing Winter Olympics is cooperative and open Games, and deems that the global winter sports professional athletes and amateurs play the leading role in the Games. This is a reflection of the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind upheld by China, which is widely praised by the international community. Some have said in media that the Olympic spirit rallies people together, overcomes historical, cultural and even ideological differences and establishes friendly relations among countries. China demonstrates its determination to engage itself in international cooperation by staging the Games.

Beijing Winter Olympics is in line with its concept of delivering a green and sustainable Games. The Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games advances “Sustainability For The Future” vision and establishes the first sustainability management system to promote the implementation of various sustainability measures in an all-round way in the history of the Olympic Games including measures such as low-carbon venue, low-carbon energy, low-carbon traffic, etc., to reduce carbon emission and achieve the great goal that all the carbon created during the Winter Olympics will be offset. All the venues for the Games will use green electricity. The Beijing 2022 Games will make full use of the venues of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. For example, the National Stadium (the Bird’s Nest), the main venue for Beijing 2008, will be used for the opening and closing ceremony. The National Aquatics Centre, known as “Water Cube” swimming venue from 2008, will turn into “Ice Cube”. Wukesong Sports Centre can realize the competition mode transformation from basketball court to ice hockey rink. The Capital Indoor Stadium built in 1968 will be the venue for short track speed skating and figure skating after renovation and expansion. The National Speed Skating Oval, also known as the “Ice Ribbon”, is the only new venue built for ice competition and the first large track speed skating venue using carbon dioxide ice-making technology in the world.

China is committed to delivering simple, safe, splendid Winter Olympics and has taken a series of COVID-19 countermeasures empowered by scientific and technological innovations to ensure the health and safety of athletes and stakeholders to the maximum extent. The Games will not hold large ceremony and not invite a large number of foreign spectators. Intelligent robots for logistics transportation will be used in all the venues to improve efficiency and avoid unnecessary contact during the epidemic. Smart canteens will have automated servers, which will ensure quick service and avoid people-to-people contact. The “closed-loop” management will be adapted during the Olympics. There will be a number of medical service stations in the three competition zones to provide quick rescue and medical treatment. The above-mentioned measures are conducive to the health and safety of athletes, working staff and spectators.

The Olympics' villages have a variety of facilities such as professional medical teams, dry-cleaner’s shops, flower shops, convenience stores and banks to deliver for the athletes. A menu of 678 dishes from all over the world will be provided with Chinese food and Western food in the ratio of 3:7. The Beijing Winter Olympics will be held during the Chinese Lunar New Year, so Chinese traditional food will be served at the same time.

The international community positively supports and speaks highly of China’s efforts for staging the Winter Olympic Games Beijing 2022. UN Secretary-General Guterres and Russian President Vladimir Putin have accepted the invitations to attend the opening ceremony. More heads of state, heads of government and members of the royal family have already registered to attend the Beijing Winter Olympics. More and more countries have expressed their support to the Beijing Winter Olympics in different ways so far. Dick Pound, a senior member of the International Olympic Committee, said: “In the regard of staging a well-organized and excellent Olympic Games, China is competent and has no problem."

Let’s look forward to the Olympic flame on February, 4, 2022.

Zhou Xin is a scholar of international studies.

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