by Shanika Jayasekara reporting from Beijing
When the curtain rises for the 2022 Winter Olympics, Beijing will become the first city to have held both Summer and Winter Olympic Games.
Preparations for the massive event are underway and are ahead of schedule, according to Chinese media.
The Winter Olympics will be held across three zones – Beijing, Yanqing, and Zhangjiakou.
Near Beijing’s National Tennis Center is the National Speed Skating Oval, dubbed as the ‘Ice Ribbon’ as it resembles the ribbon-like marks left on ice by skaters.
The mega arena will be hosting all the speed skating events and is expected to hold up to 12,000 people. Venue Operations manager Zhang Shaohui, “All ice sports can be held in this stadium, like short track speed skating, ice hockey, curling and figure skating.”
The structure of the Ice Ribbon is expected to be completed by the end of the year, which will feature 22 ribbon-shaped colored glassworks around the walls to resemble the marks skaters leave on the ice. Each ribbon is 600 meters long, and the project expected to be finished by the end of next May.
Preparations will also see venues from the 2008 Summer Olympics being reused.
The Water Cube, which hosted the aquatic events of the 2008 Summer Olympics, is being converted into the Ice Cube, becoming the first-ever venue to achieve such an “ice-water conversion,” according to Yang Qiyong, general manager of Beijing National Aquatics Center Limited.
The National stadium – Bird’s Nest, will be hosting Beijing 2022’s opening and closing events and preparation and renovation work is already underway.
On a different development, the official mascots for the 2022 Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympics were unveiled last week.
Out of 5,816 submissions since the launch of a worldwide competition last August, Winter Olympics mascot Bing (Ice) Dwen Dwen is prototyped on China’s iconic panda, while its Paralympics counterpart Shuey (Snow) Rhon Rhon draws inspiration from the lantern widely used during the Chinese Spring Festival.
The National stadium – Bird’s Nest, will be hosting Beijing 2022’s opening and closing events and preparation and renovation work is already underway. On a different development, the official mascots for the 2022 Winter Olympics and Winter Paralympics were unveiled last week.
Out of 5,816 submissions since the launch of a worldwide competition last August, Winter Olympics mascot Bing (Ice) Dwen Dwen is prototyped on China’s iconic panda, while its Paralympics counterpart Shuey (Snow) Rhon Rhon draws inspiration from the lantern widely used during the Chinese Spring Festival.
