Opening ceremony 4 February | Nations participating 90 (estimated) Closing ceremony 20 February | |
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Motto A pure passion for ice and snow.Chinese: 纯洁的冰雪 激情的约会 Events 102 in 7 sports (15 disciplines) Similar Olympic Games, Summer Olympic Games, Paralympic Games | ||
The 2022 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XXIV Olympic Winter Games (French: Les XXIVeme Jeux olympiques d'hiver ) (Chinese: 第二十四届冬季奥林匹克运动会; pinyin: Dì Èrshísì Jiè Dōngjì Àolínpǐkè Yùndònghuì), and commonly known as Beijing 2022, is a multi-sport event that will take place in Beijing and towns in the neighboring Hebei province from 4 to 20 February 2022. It will be the third consecutive Olympic Games held in East Asia, after Pyeongchang 2018 and Tokyo 2020. Having previously hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics, Beijing will become the first city to host both the Summer and Winter Olympics. It will also become the largest city ever to host the Winter Olympics, a distinction currently held by Vancouver, which hosted the 2010 Winter Olympics.
Contents
- Bidding
- Venues
- Beijing Cluster
- Yanqing Cluster
- Chongli
- Zhangjiakou Cluster
- Transport
- Sports
- Possible additional sports
- Broadcasting
- Concerns and controversies
- References
The 2022 Winter Olympics will be the first Winter Olympic Games ever to be held in China. The estimated budget for the games is $3.9 billion, less than one-tenth of the $43 billion spent on the 2008 Summer Olympics. Beijing will also be the fourth city in East Asia to host the Winter Games, after Sapporo, Japan (1972), Nagano, Japan (1998), and Pyeongchang, South Korea (2018).
Bidding
The bidding calendar was announced by the IOC in October 2012, with the application deadline set for 14 November 2013. The IOC Executive Board reviewed the bids from all applicant cities on 7 July 2014, and selected Oslo (Norway), Almaty (Kazakhstan) and Beijing (China) as the final candidate cities. Oslo withdrew its bid on 1 October 2014, leaving Almaty and Beijing as the 2 remaining candidates. Beijing was selected as host city of the 2022 Winter Olympics after beating Almaty by 4 votes, on 31 July 2015, at the 128th IOC Session in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Venues
The Beijing Olympic Games Bidding Committee unveiled the venue plan for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games on 20 February 2014: five ice events will be held at the Olympic center, the Capital Indoor Stadium and the Beijing Wukesong Sports Center, which were some of the main venues of the 2008 Summer Olympics. Competitions for luge, bobsleigh and alpine skiing will be held in Xiaohaituo Mountain area in Yanqing northwest of Beijing, 90 kilometres (56 miles) away from the city center using artificial snow given the rarity of natural snow in this region All other skiing events will be held in Taizicheng Area in Chongli, Zhangjiakou, 220 km (140 mi) from downtown Beijing and 130 km (81 mi) away from Xiaohaituo Mountain Area.
Beijing Cluster
Yanqing Cluster
Chongli
The town of Chongli in Hebei province will stage most of the skiing events during the 2022 Winter Olympics. The ski resort has earned over 1.54 billion yuan (237.77 million U.S. dollars) in tourism from the 2015–2016 snow season for a 31.6 percent growth over the previous season. In 2016 it was announced that Chongli has received 2.185 million tourists for an increase of 30 percent during the first snow season after the winning the Olympic bid. The snow season lasted for five months from November, during which Chongli has hosted 36 competitions and activities, such as Far East Cup and Children Skiing International Festival. A total of 23 skiing camps have also been set up, attracting the participation of 3,800 youths. All venue construction will start in November 2016 and will be finished by the end of 2020 to enable the city to hold test events.
Zhangjiakou Cluster
Transport
The new Beijing-Zhangjiakou Intercity Railway will be built, starting from Beijing North Railway Station, and terminating at Zhangjiakou South Railway Station. It will be built for speeds up to 350 km/h (217 mph), and travel from Beijing to Zhangjiakou is estimated to take 50 minutes.
The Beijing Subway is expected to continue expanding and projected to have at least 24 lines by 2022. Expressway and highway networks are also expected to be upgraded.
A new second airport for Beijing and the region, tentatively known as Beijing Daxing International Airport, is expected to open by 2019.
Sports
Fifteen sports are scheduled in the 2022 Winter Olympics program. Skating will include three disciplines – Figure skating, Speed skating and Short track speed skating – while skiing will be represented by six disciplines – alpine skiing, cross-country skiing, freestyle skiing, Nordic combined, ski jumping and snowboarding. Bobsleigh events will be contested in both bobsleigh and Skeleton disciplines. The remaining four sports are biathlon, Curling, ice hockey and luge.
Possible additional sports
A delegation from the Chinese Olympic Committee visited the 2017 Bandy World Championship and held talks with FIB President Boris Skrynnik about the possibility of including bandy in 2022. The matches could then be hosted at Olympic Sports Centre, a 36,000 capacity Stadium.
Broadcasting
Broadcast rights to the 2022 Winter Olympics in some countries were already sold as part of long-term broadcast rights deals. In France and the United Kingdom, the 2022 Winter Olympics will be the first where Eurosport will be the main rightsholder; the BBC will sub-license a limited amount of coverage on free-to-air television, as part of a deal that saw the BBC sell the pay-TV rights to the 2018 and 2020 Games to Eurosport.
Concerns and controversies
Several cities withdrew their applications during the bidding process, citing the high costs or the lack of local support to host the 2022 games, leaving Almaty and Beijing as the only candidate cities by 1 October 2014.
The decision to bid for the Olympics was controversial in China (and outside) because Beijing itself, and especially some of the proposed outdoor venues, do not have reliable snowfall in winter for snow sports. Concerns have been raised that snow may need to be transported to the venues at great cost and with uncertain environmental consequences.
The environmental impact of hosting the games near Beijing has been questioned. Some of the proposed venues will be adjacent to the Beijing Songshan National Nature Reserve and part of the same mountain system, and the environmental impact on the nature reserve of construction, and artificially covering parts of the mountain with snow, is uncertain. The Chinese government responded to these concerns by expanding the adjacent Beijing Songshan National Nature Reserve by 31% of its original size.