Beijing Winter Olympic Games a hot topic at two sessions
By Bai
Yang from People’s Daily
The preparation of the Beijing
2022 Winter Olympic Games has become a hot topic among national legislators and
top political advisors during China’s ongoing “"two sessions”, as China
steps up efforts to present the world a feast of winter sports.
The Beijing Winter Olympic
Games, scheduled to take place from 4 to 20 February, 2022 in Beijing and its neighboring Zhangjiakou, will be the first
Winter Olympic Games ever held by China.
“We divided the preparation
work in five phases, and are currently going through the second one –individual
program planning,” said Wang Yanxia, member of the 13th National Committee of
the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), at a group
meeting of the second session of the country’s top political advisory body. The
preparation will move on to the third phase of testing events this year, she
added.
Wang, who is also the deputy
director of the Sports Department of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the
2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, detailed the preparations of the Games
at the meeting, introducing that they are making steady progress in venue construction,
personnel training, technology support, market development, meteorological
guarantee, and volunteer services.
The Organizing Committee has subdivided
55 items of all preparation work into 3,158 specific tasks. So far, the venue
construction has been fully started, and most of the venues will meet the
requirements of the testing events the next year.
The Alpine Skiing World Cup,
as the first test match for the 2022 Winter Olympics, will be held in Yanqing
in February 2020, said Shen Jin, member of the CPPCC and deputy director of the
Venue Planning and Construction Department of the Organising Committee. “It’ll
be an arduous task as the championship is about to kick off in less than a
year,” Shen noted.
Shen said that the National
Alpine Skiing Center is set to meet the trial event requirements by the end of
October this year and all the other competition venues will be completed and
ready for trial events next year.
The Beijing-Zhangjiakou High
Speed Railway and Yanchong Expressway linking Yanqing District and Chongli
District of Zhangjiakou are also expected to open this year, she added.
The wide application of smart
and intelligent technologies in the venues will be a major highlight. The
National Speed Skating Oval, the only new venue built in Beijing for the event,
will provide athletes with a digital system for timing and speed measurement,
and provide spectators with intelligent seat guidance and analysis for
real-time event.
Telecom giant and internet
service provider of the Games China Unicom announced last December that it
would invest over 1.5 billion yuan ($217 million) to upgrade its communicating
services and build a 5G-based broadband network, in a bid to create a smart
operation guarantee system, provide ultimate user experience, high-quality
event services and intelligent venue operations.
Competitions are a key factor
for the success of the Winter Olympic Games, and snow events are full of
uncertainties due to the weathers. In order to ensure meteorological guarantee,
the Organizing Committee signed an agreement with China Meteorological
Administration (CMA) to set up a meteorological service center.
A chief meteorological
officer was appointed and 52 weather forecasters were transferred from the CMA to
establish a forecasting team. Every venue of the Games will be stationed with
one full-time forecaster.
The weather forecast during
the Games will be accurate to every 100 meters, which will also be updated in
minutes, said Zhang Jiandong, vice mayor of Beijing and executive vice president
of the Organizing Committee.
According to Zhang, also a
deputy to the 13th National People’s Congress (NPC), the CMA’s meteorological
forecasting team is conducting drills and tests in accordance with the requirements
of the International Olympic Committee to update meteorological information of
every 100 meters in every 10 minutes.
Thomas Bach, president of the International Olympic
Committee, inspects preparation progress of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic
Games in Zhangjiakou, north China’s Hebei Province, and Beijing’s Yanqing
District, January 29, 2019. (Photo by Zhang Chenlin / official website of the
Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games)
Beijing Winter Olympic Games a hot topic at two sessions
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