Three years from Winter Games, 'Twice Olympic City' Beijing marches toward excellence

Benefits from double Olympics

As the 2022 Olympics makes Beijing the world's first host city of both a Summer Games and a Winter Games, a group of Chinese people have also gained the opportunity to serve the Olympics twice.

15 years ago, at the age of 35, Li Jiulin was appointed as Chief Engineer of the construction of the Bird's Nest. At that time, no one had the experience in China to deal with such complicated structural steel construction. Li and his colleagues completed 13,520 construction drawings on the basis of 150 designs and eventually built the Bird's Nest.

Now Li is leading his team to build the National Speed Skating Oval, dubbed the "Ice Ribbon," the only new permanent ice-sports venue for the 2022 Games.

The 50-year-old is much more confident now than he was a decade ago because of the experience and technologies he has accumulated from the Bird's Nest project.

"Any architecture is a reflection of its era. The building of the Beijing National Stadium launched a new era in China's construction industry, and has drawn a variety of innovations, many of which have been upgraded in the following years and will be applied to the National Speed Skating Oval," added Li.

Beijing 2022 also gives new life to the old site of Shougang, once the burning heart of Beijing's industrial complex, whose entire steel-making complex was relocated out of Beijing in the run-up to the 2008 Games.

It is now not only home to the Beijing 2022 Olympic Games Organizing Committee, but also being transformed into big air snowboarding venues for the Games.

Beijing 2022 is also embracing Olympic Agenda 2020 by working more closely with the International Federations and former Games organizers on venue and sports delivery.

From November 2017 to March 2018, Beijing 2022 sent a total of 254 staff members to PyeongChang 2018 to get first-hand experience by working in key roles in the local organizing committee or joining in an observational capacity.

Since its launch in February 2017, Beijing 2022's marketing program has seen a great success. The eight official partners signed are Bank of China, Air China, Yili Group (dairy products), ANTA (sports apparel), China Unicom (telecommunication services), Shougang Group (urban regeneration services), CNPC (oil & gas), and Sinopec Group (oil & gas). Some of them were also official partners of Beijing 2008.

The organizers have adopted a series of new measures to attract sponsors. China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and China Petrochemical Corporation (Sinopec Group), two global energy giants, became official oil & gas partners of the Games by sharing marketing rights in the oil & gas category. Chinese beer brands Tsingtao and Yanjing have also been named the official beers in a similar arrangement.

The emblems of the Beijing 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, respectively named "Winter Dream" and "Flying High," were unveiled in the end of 2017. Beijing also issued a worldwide call for mascot designs and for opening ceremony proposals last year.

When the school year began in September last year, elementary and secondary school students across China were encouraged to create their own mascots for the Games in art classes.