Beijing’s Yanqing district strives to build itself into ‘city of ice and snow’ as preparations for 2022 Winter Olympics proceed smoothly

As one of the three competition zones for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, Yanqing district of Beijing is determined to build itself into a “city of ice and snow” while preparing for the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Yanqing district held cultural activities on Sept. 21 in the Badaling section of the Great Wall of China to celebrate the 500-day countdown to the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games.

As part of the cultural activities in celebration of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics’ 500-day countdown, flag-bearers carried the flag of Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games and ran up along the Great Wall to covey good wishes to the event.

With dense forests and pleasant breeze, Xiaohaituo Mountain in Yanqing district is offering a beautiful scenery in autumn. Deep in the valley of the Xiaohaituo Mountain lies the bobsleigh and luge race track of the National Sliding Center snaking and revolving among lofty mountains and high ranges like a dragon.

Stretching for 1,975 meters, the race track has 16 bends with different angles and gradients. The biggest vertical drop of the track measures over 120 meters.

The National Sliding Center represents one of the most difficult designs among all the construction projects for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics in the Yanqing competition zone. It requires the largest amount of engineering and the most complex construction technologies.

“I have seen with my own eyes how the race track was built from scratch and continuously perfected,” said Yao Yuan, secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) committee of the National Sliding Center project.

Yao has participated in the project since January 2018 when the construction of the project was officially started. “The constructors have overcome numerous difficulties and made many technological breakthroughs,” Yao added, who feels very proud to demonstrate China’s strength and the power of Winter Olympics to the world.

In an effort to make sure that all the projects concerning the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics in the Yanqing competition zone can be basically completed and ready for staging competitions within this year, Yanqing district has established a highly efficient working mechanism, coordinated timely for the resolving of difficulties and problems hindering construction and quality of relevant projects, and promoted the implementation of various preparation tasks.

As of August 31, 92.1 percent of the engineering quantity of the National Alpine Ski Center project and 94.4 percent of the engineering quantity of the National Sliding Center in Yanqing district had been completed.

Meanwhile, more than 70 percent of the tasks had been finished for the Yanqing Winter Olympic Village project and the Mountain News Center project in the district.

The idea of holding a green Winter Olympics in 2022 has been running through the preparation for the event in the Yanqing competition zone.

At present, more than 300 native trees are thriving in the Yanqing Winter Olympic Village, while the construction of the Winter Olympic Forest Park is proceeding in order, with 24,000 plants of 25 varieties having been transplanted from the core area of the Yanqing competition zone to the park already.

“We have taken measures in light of the local situation and adopted methods according to concrete problems while restoring the ecology in the Yanqing competition zone,” said Liu Nali, an official with the Yanqing district ecology and environment bureau, who is in charge of the ecological restoration tasks.

“By Sept. 17, we have completed ecological restoration tasks of 110 spots covering 1.05 million square meters of areas,” Liu noted.

Besides major projects for holding competitions, Yanqing district is also ramping up efforts to promote the construction and relevant work of supporting facilities and service areas.

The construction of the medical security center of the Beijing Winter Olympic Games in the Yanqing competition zone has entered the sprint stage. The center, which is expected to be put into operation by the end of this year, has a surface area of 12,467 square meters and a total of 18 departments, and is equipped with a parking apron for emergency medical transfer.

It is designed to provide high-quality and efficient one-stop medical services for athletes, staff members, and friends from all over the globe during the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.

At the area 3 kilometers away from the medical security center, the construction of a railway transfer center that serves as a train station on the Yanqing branch of the high-speed railway line connecting Beijing and Zhangjiakou, the co-host city of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics in north China’s Hebei province, has been completed in mid-July and is ready for operation.

The Beijing-Zhangjiakou high-speed rail will also play an important role for residents in Yanqing district to carry out daily activities and commute between the district and the central area of Beijing, providing a solid guarantee for completely resolving the traffic bottleneck for Yanqing district.

Besides trying to guarantee the access to medical services and transport, Yanqing district has also ensured accommodation conditions for the Winter Olympic Games.

So far, the district has signed contracts with 14 hotels for relevant services during the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, including four five-star hotels, six four-star hotels, and four three-star hotels, which are expected to provide 3,331 guest rooms.

Taking advantage of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympic Games, Yanqing district has also given impetus to the development of featured industries. The district’s four major industries, modern horticulture, ice and snow sports, new energy and energy Internet, as well as unmanned aerial vehicle, have continuously gathered momentum.

With the Zhongguancun Sports Sci-tech Innovation Park in Yanqing being inaugurated in Yanqing district, 32 well-known sport enterprises have landed in the park, signaling the aggregate effect of the development of the ice and snow industry in Yanqing district.

To achieve the goal of “bringing 300 million people into ice and snow sports”, Yanqing district has intensified efforts to build venues for ice and snow sports, hold ice and snow competitions and activities, and cultivate talents for ice and snow sports, in a bid to draw people’s attention to the industry.

Thanks to the long-term efforts of the district, the economic vitality of the ice and snow industry has been quickly unleashed. With well-equipped facilities covering skating rinks, ski fields, and indoor ice rinks, tourists and enthusiasts of ice and snow sports can have fun with snow and ice whenever they want.