OLYMPIC PREPARATIONS ON TRACK DESPITE COVID-19 CHALLENGE
◆ Organizers of the Beijing 2022 Winter Games are forging ahead to test venues and ensure safety
Despite the unprecedented challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, Beijing is moving full steam ahead with preparations for hosting green and sustainable Winter Olympic Games in 2022.
With venues taking shape, operational staff trained and legacy plans drawn up, the capital is moving forward with co-host Zhangjiakou, Hebei province, in preparing for the Games, even as the ongoing pandemic forces major sporting events to be canceled or delayed.
Preparation of all 13 competition venues, newly built or renovated, will be finished by the end of the year, while planning for post-Games venue operations, recruitment of volunteers and the design of medals and the Olympic torch are all underway and on schedule, Beijing organizers said on Sept 21, just 500 days before the opening ceremony on Feb 4, 2022.
The Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games said that after a short break for Spring Festival, organizers in the Games’ three zones — downtown Beijing, the capital’s Yanqing district and Zhang jiakou’s Chongli district — resumed preparatory work as early as February under vigilant infection control and prevention measures to lay a solid foundation for all the competition venues to be ready for test events by the end of the year.
The Games’ global volunteer recruitment drive has received more than 870,000 applications, while a domestic sponsorship program has signed 34 Chinese businesses as marketing partners, the organizing committee said.
Beijing’s smooth progress toward becoming the first city to host both the Summer and Winter Olympics, having staged the 2008 Games, has impressed the International Olympic Committee.
“This is something very significant for the entire Olympic movement,” said Thomas Bach, IOC president, during an interview aired on China Central Television to mark the 500-day countdown to the opening ceremony.
“When you see the impressive engagement of the Chinese enterprises and the businesses supporting the Olympic Games … when you see the infrastructure, which has been built or is under construction to accommodate the many, many Chinese people who want to practice winter sports. Then, you can only be impressed.”
With only two more winters to go before the Games, organizers have been working closely with the IOC, international winter sports governing bodies and other stakeholders to figure out feasible ways to safely stage pre-Games test events, while also training operational staff and volunteers.
“Preparing for the Games is just like running a marathon. We are more than halfway through the race now, but, with the pandemic remaining, we are facing an uphill battle,” said Han Zirong, a vice-president and secretary-general of the Beijing 2022 organizing committee.
Challenges remaining
With the infrastructure for the Games almost ready, organizers have been shifting the focus from venue construction to bringing test events back on track, while cautiously mitigating the pandemic’s impact.
Scheduled for February as part of the International Ski Federation’s World Cup series, an Alpine skiing race that was planned as the first official Beijing 2022 test event was called off amid the pandemic.
The outbreak has resulted in the postponement or cancellation of a number of major international events, including the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics and soccer’s European championship.
On Sept 30, the International Skating Union announced the postponement of two Beijing 2022 test events in December — the figure skating Grand Prix final and a leg of the short-track speed skating World Cup — at the refurbished Capital Gymnasium in Beijing. That followed the cancellation in August of four long-track and two short-track events on the circuit because of the pandemic.
However, Beijing 2022 organizers and China’s winter sports governing body have reiterated that they are proceeding with preparations for future test events in the hope that the global health crisis eases.
“Flexible planning to make sure the test events go ahead despite the challenge is one of the priorities of our work at the moment,” said Cai Qi, Beijing’s Party chief and president of the 2022 organizing committee, at a recent preparation review meeting.
“We have to stay in close contact with international winter sports federations and adjust the event plans reasonably to get the action going while sticking to the virus-prevention protocols in our country.”
Should the test events proceed on a later date, they are expected to be held without a live audience and will only feature Chinese athletes as the focus will mainly be on the evaluation of facilities, venue operation and service, according to ISU proposals.
Meanwhile, the IOC has expressed cautious optimism about the feasibility of the 2022 Games, citing the development of rapid testing methods and vaccines.
“When I say ‘carefully optimistic’, it’s because we don’t know what the situation will be a year from now,” Christophe Dubi, IOC executive director for the Olympic Games, said during an online speech at last month’s World Winter Sports Expo (Beijing) 2020.
“But we are optimistic because we know we can do it, because we have a fantastic partnership with Tokyo and equally strong partnership with Beijing, and we are going to deliver.”
The Tokyo Summer Games have been rescheduled to run from July 23 to Aug 8 next year. The Beijing Winter Olympics are set to open less than six months later.
Sustainability highlighted
Facilitated by eco-friendly solutions and post-Games venue plans, Beijing’s commitment to a green and sustainable approach toward organizing the 2022 Games has shed new light on the future of permanent Olympic projects.
As part of the plan, organizers have taken advantage of the 2008 Games’ legacy to repurpose five venues in Beijing’s downtown that were used for the Olympics, such as the iconic National Aquatics Center and the Wukesong Arena, to host competitions and ceremonies in 2022.
The aquatics center, built for swimming events in 2008 and known as the Water Cube, has been transformed into an “Ice Cube” for curling events following renovation work that will see the main pool filled with removable steel structures when ice is required. The venue is already hosting curling events, such as a national junior open in December.
“Thanks to the opportunity to host Winter Games’ events, our business has benefited from the introduction of a new sport, and we have added a wider range of attractions to our portfolio,” said Yang Qiyong, the
venue’s general manager.
Some newly built Beijing 2022 venues, featuring new technologies and incorporating post-Games plans, such as the National Speed Skating Oval, are setting an example for eco-friendly operations.
The oval, which will stage speedskating in 2022, is the first in the world of its scale to use carbon dioxide as a green refrigerant to make and maintain a 12,000-square-meter ice surface for speedskating, replacing the environmentally harmful substance Freon.
That progress is also being illustrated at Xiaohaituo Mountain in Beijing’s Yanqing district, where two new venues — the National Alpine Skiing Center and the National Sliding Center — have taken shape with environmental protection and energy efficiency at the core of construction.
In 2022, the skiing center will host 11 Olympic disciplines, including the downhill and giant slalom competitions, while the sliding center will stage the bobsled, luge and skeleton events.
The skiing center’s design features an efficient water recycling system, which will collect rainwater and store melted snow in two highaltitude reservoirs. The water will then be pumped up to snow-making machines along the slopes, where man-made snow is needed for course preparation during dry winters, according to the property’s owner and constructor, Beijing Enterprises Group, aka BG.
The sliding center will be covered by a wooden roof along its entire length of 1.9 kilometers, providing an effective sunshade to reduce energy consumption and keep the track frozen.
“Our goal is to meet the requirements for hosting such sports to the highest standard, while ensuring that the construction and operations are as energy efficient as possible,” said Li Changzhou, a deputy general construction manager for BG.
Ideas for developing these newly built venues beyond 2022 into national team training bases, outdoor tourism destinations and hosts of winter recreational activities have been highlighted in Beijing 2022’s official sustainability plan, which was released in June.
“We said basically that a city should not adapt to the Games. Well, on the contrary, the Games have to adapt to a city or a region. And this is what we have done altogether in the context of Beijing,” Dubi, from the IOC, said.
Winter sports for all
As China prepares to host the Games, there has been a dramatic increase in winter sports participation in the country.
Once a poor county nestling in mountains and little-known to the rest of China, Chongli district in Zhang jiakou, where most of the snow sports will be held in 2022, is already benefiting from the Games.
Linked to Beijing by a high-speed railway line that began operating in December, Chongli has become one of the country’s hottest skiing destinations. The railway has reduced the travel time between the capital and mountain resorts from more than three hours by car to about 50 minutes by train.
During the 2018-19 winter season, a record 1 million-plus skiers and snowboarders visited Chongli, more than double the 480,000 in the 201516 season, according to the district’s tourism bureau.
By 2022, as part of a national plan to further promote winter sports as a lifestyle choice, China aims to build 650 skating rinks and 800 ski resorts, up from 334 and 770 respectively at the end of last year, paving the way for winter sports and recreational activities to involve 300 million people by 2022.
To expand education about Olympic values, history and winter sports knowledge before the Games, the Beijing 2022 organizing committee and the Ministry of Education last month unveiled three sets of teaching materials featuring translated content from the IOC’s educational toolkit and original cartoons. The materials are being distributed to over 1,800 schools across the country as guidance for teachers and extracurricular books for students.
The publication of the books will help diversify physical education programs in schools by including Winter Olympics elements to make them more appealing to students, said Pei Dongguang, a professor of Olympic studies at the Capital University of Physical Education and Sports.
“It’s a landmark development in the history of Olympic education in China. Our school PE classes and after-school activities can be carried out with more interesting content about Olympic winter sports,” he said.
Flexible planning to make the test events go ahead despite the challenge is one of the priorities of our work at the moment. We have to stay in close contact with international winter sports federations and adjust the event plans reasonably to get the action going while sticking to the virus-prevention protocols in our country.”
Cai Qi, Beijing’s Party chief and president of the 2022 organizing committee, at a recent preparation review meeting