Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics

The 2022 Winter Olympics, officially known as the XXIV Olympic Winter Games (French: Les XXIV^èmes 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 an international winter multi-sport event that is scheduled to take place from 4 to 20 February 2022, in Beijing and towns in the neighbouring Hebei province, China.

Beijing was elected as the host city in July 2015 at the 128th IOC Session in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. These Games will be the first Winter Olympics ever to be held in China, the fourth Winter Olympics held in East Asia, and the last of three consecutive Olympics to be held in East Asia, following the 2018 Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea, and the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan. With its previous hosting of the 2008 Summer Olympics, Beijing will be the first city to have ever hosted both the Summer and Winter Olympics: there are plans to utilize many of the same venues that were used for the 2008 Games, including its indoor venues, and Beijing National Stadium as ceremonies venue.

Bidding

Main article: Bids for the 2022 Winter Olympics
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 three cities, Oslo (Norway), Almaty (Kazakhstan) and Beijing (China) as the final candidates.

Several cities withdrew their applications during the bidding process, citing the high costs or the lack of local support for hosting the Games. Oslo, which had been considered the clear frontrunner, withdrew after the Norwegian parliament rejected the application for funding of the games. Public reception to the application for funding had been highly negative due to cost concerns after the cost overruns of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, and especially revelations about a series of hospitality-related demands that had been reportedly made by the IOC. The demands notably included “diva-like demands for luxury treatment” for the IOC members themselves, such as special lanes on all roads only to be used by IOC members and a cocktail reception at the Royal Palace with drinks paid for by the royal family. Several commentators pointed out that such demands were unheard of in a western democracy; Slate described the IOC as a “notoriously ridiculous organization run by grifters and hereditary aristocrats.”

Beijing was selected as host city of the 2022 Winter Olympics after beating Almaty by four votes on 31 July 2015 at the 128th IOC Session in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

2022 Winter Olympics bidding results

City	Nation	Votes
Beijing	China	44
Almaty	Kazakhstan	40

Venues

 

Location of the three Beijing 2022 clusters

In urban area of Beijing, five ice events will be held at the Olympic Green, the Capital Indoor Stadium and the Beijing Wukesong Sports Center, which were some of the main venues of the 2008 Summer Olympics. The Big Air snowboarding and freestyle skiing events will be held in a new area of urban development in Shijingshan District, a district in urban area of Beijing.

Competitions for luge, bobsleigh and alpine skiing will be held in Xiaohaituo Mountain area in Yanqing District, northwest of urban area of Beijing, 90 kilometres (56 miles) away from the city center, using artificial snow because of the rarity of natural snow in this region.

All other skiing events will be held in Taizicheng Area in Chongli District, Zhangjiakou city, Hebei Province. It is 220 km (140 mi) from downtown Beijing and 130 km (81 mi) away from Xiaohaituo Mountain Area.

Beijing cluster

Olympic Green venues

• Beijing National Aquatics Center – curling / 4,000 existing/renovated
• Beijing National Indoor Stadium – ice hockey / 18,000 existing
• Beijing National Stadium – opening and closing ceremonies / 80,000 existing
• Beijing Winter Olympics Village – new
  New buildings will be built in another place at the Olympic Green, will not be the same village used in 2008. These buildings are already definitely housing since the end of 2008.
• National Speed Skating Oval – speed skating / 12,000 new
• China National Convention Center – MPC/IBC / existing

Other venues

• Capital Indoor Stadium – figure skating, short track speed skating / 15,000 existing
• Wukesong Sports Centre – ice hockey / 10,000 existing
• Shijingshan District – snowboarding (Big Air), freestyle skiing (Big Air) – TBA new

Yanqing cluster

Yanqing District is a suburban district of Beijing.

• Xiaohaituo Alpine Skiing Field – alpine skiing 15,000
• Xiaohaituo Bobsleigh, skeleton and Luge Track – bobsleigh, luge, skeleton / 5,000 new
• Yanqing MMC: Media Center
• Yanqing Olympic Village / new

Zhangjiakou cluster[edit]

Zhangjiakou is a city in Hebei Province. Chongli District in Zhangjiakou city will stage most of the skiing events during the 2022 Winter Olympics. The ski resort earned over 1.54 billion yuan (US$237.77 million) in tourism during the 2015–16 snow season for a 31.6% growth over the previous season. In 2016, it was announced that Chongli received 2.185 million tourists, an increase of 30% from the previous season, during the first snow season after 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 started in November 2016 and will be finished by the end of 2020 to enable the city to hold test events.

• Kuyangshu Nordic Center and Biathlon Center – cross-country skiing, Nordic combined (cross-country skiing) 15,000
• Kuyangshu Ski Jumping Field – ski jumping, Nordic combined (ski jumping) 10,000
• Hualindong Ski Resort – biathlon 15,000
• Genting Hotel – Media Center
• Genting Snow Park – snowboarding (slopestyle, halfpipe), freestyle skiing 5,000
• Taiwu Ski Resort – snowboarding (cross), freestyle skiing 10,000
• Wanlong Ski Resort – snowboarding (parallel slalom) 5,000
• Zhangjiakou Olympic Village

Transport

The new Beijing-Zhangjiakou intercity railway will be built, starting from Beijing North railway station, and ending at Zhangjiakou railway station. It will be built for speeds of up to 350 km/h (217 mph), and travel time from Beijing to Zhangjiakou is estimated to be around 50 minutes.

The Beijing Subway is expected to continue expanding and is projected reach 1,000 kilometres (620 miles) in length by 2022.

A new airport for Beijing and the surrounding region, Beijing Daxing International Airport, is due to open by 2019. The airport will replace the Beijing Nanyuan Airportand operate together with the Beijing Capital International Airport.^[17]

Budget

The estimated budget for the games is US$3.9 billion, less than one-tenth of the $43 billion spent on the 2008 Summer Olympics.^[18]

Sports

The 2022 Winter Olympics are scheduled to include 109 events over 15 disciplines in 7 sports.

Numbers in parentheses indicate the number of medal events contested in each separate discipline.

New events

In October 2016, the International Ski Federation (FIS) announced plans to begin sanctioning women’s competitions in Nordic combined, with the objective of contesting the discipline at the Olympic level for the first time in Beijing. In November 2017, a further three events were put forward by the FIS for possible Olympic inclusion: a ski jumping mixed team competition and men’s and women’s big air in freestyle skiing.

At their May 2018 Congress at the Costa Navarino resort in Messenia, Greece, FIS submitted several additional events for consideration, including a proposal to make telemark skiing an Olympic discipline for the first time in Beijing, with proposed competitions to include the men’s and women’s parallel sprint and a mixed team parallel sprint. The Congress also approved to submit the aerials mixed team event and several new snowboarding events: the men and women’s snowboard crossteam event; a mixed team alpine parallel event; the men’s and women’s parallel special slalom; and a mixed team parallel special slalom event. The individual parallel special slalom events were featured at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, but were dropped from the Olympic program in 2018 to make way for the snowboarding big air competitions.

The International Luge Federation (FIL) has proposed the addition of six new events, including natural track luge (men’s and women’s singles), a women’s doubles competition on the artificial track, and sprint events (men, women, and doubles) on the artificial track.

The International Skating Union (ISU) continues to campaign for the addition of synchronized skating as a new event within the discipline of figure skating. They are also proposing a new short track speed skating mixed team event.

In biathlon, a single mixed relay has been proposed by the International Biathlon Union (IBU) to complement the four-person mixed relay which featured at the 2018 Winter Olympics. Also, a new team event has been proposed by the International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation (IBSF), and asumedly the women’s monobob event, despite the recommendation from the federation’s executive board to propose a four-women event.

In July 2018, the IOC announced the addition of seven new events: women’s monobob; freestyle skiing big air (men and women); mixed team events for freestyle skiing aerials, ski jumping, and snowboard cross; and the mixed relay in short track speed skating. This means a total of 109 events will be held.

Participating National Olympic Committees

Marketing

Emblem

The official emblem “Winter Dream” (冬梦) was unveiled on 15 December 2017 at the Beijing National Aquatics Center. The emblem is a stylized rendition of the character “冬” (Winter) inspired by winter snow, with a ribbon motif. The top is meant to resemble a skater and the bottom is meant to resemble a skier. The emblem also features the Olympic colors (except black) and the Chinese flag colors. The emblem was designed by Lin Cunzhen who also created the Nanjing 2014 logo.

Sponsors

Broadcasting

In some countries, broadcast rights to the 2022 Winter Olympics are already agreed through existing long-term deals. In France and the United Kingdom, these are the first Games 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 in which the BBC sold the pay-TV rights to the 2018 and 2020 Games to Eurosport.

In the United States, the Games will once again be broadcast by NBCUniversal properties as part of its multi-year agreement with the IOC. The 2022 edition of the Super Bowl—championship game of the National Football League (NFL) and historically among the most-watched television broadcasts in the country annually—is tentatively scheduled during an ongoing Olympics for the first time in its history. On 13 March 2019, it was announced that NBC had traded 2021’s Super Bowl LV to CBS (which, alongside Fox and NBC, alternate airing the Super Bowl on a three-year rotation) in favour of the 2022 game. Holding rights to both events will prevent them from competing for viewership and advertising sales, and also allow NBC to create synergies and advertising packages for them (as it did during Super Bowl LII, which was played prior to the 2018 Winter Olympics and also televised by NBC).

•  Armenia – APMTV
•  Asia – Dentsu (rights to be sold to local broadcasters)
•  Brazil – Grupo Globo
•  Canada – CBC/Radio-Canada, TSN, RDS
•  China – CCTV
•  Europe – Discovery Communications, Eurosport (free-to-air rights to be sold to local broadcasters)
•  Germany – ARD, ZDF
•  Hungary – MTVA
•  Japan – Japan Consortium
•  Kosovo – RTK
•  Latin America – América Móvil
•  MENA – beIN Sports
•  New Zealand – Sky Television
•  North Korea – SBS
•  Oceania – Sky Television
•  Singapore – Mediacorp
•  South Africa – SABC, SuperSport
•  South Korea – SBS
•  Sub-Saharan Africa – Econet Media, SuperSport
•  United States – NBCUniversal
•  United Kingdom – Eurosport, BBC

Concerns and controversies

Critics questioned the Beijing bid, citing that the proposed outdoor venue sites 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 Reserveby 31% of its original size.