Beijing Winter Olympic villages set to welcome athletes

With competitors and officials set to start arriving in China for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, Games organisers have advised that athletes villages in Beijing's city centre, Yanqing District and neighbouring Zhangjiakou City are complete and ready to welcome residents.

With the games just a month away, the village precincts have been extensively tested, with the Olympic village in northwest Beijing's Yanqing District the last to be completed in the weeks before Christmas.

Starting this week, thousands of games-related staff, volunteers, cleaners, cooks and coach drivers will be entering a so-called ‘closed loop’ with no direct physical access to the outside world.

The Beijing Olympic Organising Committee advised that from site selection to construction completion, it took five years to finish building the three villages.

One of the targets during the construction was to be green and sustainable, with all three villages having met this target.

Speaking at the pre-Christmas press conference, Liu Yumin, the Director of the Planning and Construction Department of Beijing Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, advised “all three Winter Olympics villages meet the three-star green building standard.

“During the construction of the Yanqing Village, about 130 native trees were preserved, and 24,000 trees were transplanted to an 'Olympic forest'."

Liu went on to state that another important task ahead of the Olympics is the cleaning and waste management of the villages, with the Organising Committee having created a waste removal operation system.

He advised “our standard system was formulated based on experience from the domestic cleaning industry and the standard set by the International Olympic Committee. It includes macro-level guidelines and detailed standards and procedures. The three villages will operate based on this same system.”

Ma Boyang, Secretary General of the Venue Operation Team for the Beijing Winter Olympic Village, also explained how the Organising Committee’s Epidemic Prevention Manual includes an emergency response element if a positive case of Coronavirus is found in any of the villages.

Ma advised “first, when positive cases are found, the medical team will quickly transfer the patients by ambulance to designated infectious disease hospitals, and then we will determine and manage close contacts.

“Third, professional disinfection personnel will carry out comprehensive disinfection of the environment. Last, we will have experts evaluate the general situation.”

The Games run from 4th to 20th February followed by the Winter Paralympics.

Image: The Winter Olympics village at Zhangjiakou. Credit: Beijing Olympic Organising Committee.