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IOC Declares Beijing Ready for 2022 Winter Olympics

  • Posted Oct 27, 2021 10:34 by Andrew Barnes-Roberts
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INTERNATIONAL: IOC President, Thomas Bach, believes Beijing is ready to host the 2022 Winter Olympics with 100 days to go until the opening ceremony. In an interview with IOC Newsroom, Bach says everything is set for Beijing to become the first city ever to host both the Summer and Winter games.

Beijing is ready – even down to the animation and its mascots. Olympic swimming pools have been drained – to be replaced by Olympic-size ice-rinks. Constructions teams have been working around the clock to prepare some of the most impressive venues the Winter Olympics have ever seen. Not bad for a city that is hosting its first-ever Winter Olympics, barely 14 years after it hosted the Summer games in 2008.

Over in Lausanne, Switzerland, at the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee, its President Thomas Bach says despite concerns about the ongoing pandemic, China is on track:

"The determination of China and the Chinese people is impressive. China does not only want to contain the virus, it wants to eradicate the virus, and this is being done with great efficiency with very strict measures. And this of course will also be transferred to the Olympic Winter Games so that everybody participating in these Olympic Winter Games can rely on safe organisation of these Games and can all have the confidence in these preparations and in the COVID countermeasures."

Tickets for the Games are being sold only to spectators from mainland China. Any unvaccinated athletes will have to spend 21 days in quarantine ahead of the Games. Even fully-vaccinated participants will enter what it called a "closed-loop management system", think of it as another Olympic bubble. This will cover all Games-related areas and stadiums as well as accommodation, catering and the opening and closing ceremonies, all served by a dedicated transport system. All domestic and international participants, as well as the Olympic Games workforce will be tested for Covid-19 every day. The Games will last 16 days in total, with the opening ceremony on Friday 4 February.


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