Chinese Vice Premier urges Beijing 2022 organizers to fulfill promises as focus shifts to operations

CHINESE Vice Premier Han Zheng has urged the BEIJING 2022 organizers to stay committed to delivering a "fantastic, extraordinary and excellent" Olympic Winter Games, as preparations start to shift focus from venue construction to the management and operation of competition centers.

Han, who is also a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, and head of a leading group overseeing the BEIJING 2022 preparations, made the remarks on Tuesday at a high-level meeting attended by officials from relevant government departments, along with the heads of BEIJING Municipality and neighboring Hebei Province.

With less than three years to go before the 2022 Winter Olympics open, the seven-year preparation period has passed its halfway point. Han stressed that venue construction must meet Olympic standards and be completed on time so that pre-tournament test events can take place as scheduled.

BEIJING 2022 announced last year that the first official Olympic test event will be held at the National Alpine Ski Center in Yanqing District in February 2020.

Han urged BEIJING 2022 organizers to make full use of the test events to improve the management and operation of venues. "We should try to fix any problems encountered during the test events and then create an efficient model of venue operation," he said.

Han also called for more effort to be made in areas including accommodation, catering, transport, security and medical services.

In order to "host an Olympics as pure and clean as snow", Han reiterated that the Games' budget should be carefully analyzed and reviewed.

China had set a target of encouraging 300 million of the country's citizens to take up winter sports. In addition, the country aims to have at least one competitor in each of the 109 disciplines at BEIJING 2022.

To achieve such goals, Han called on relevant departments to further promote ice and snow sports among the public, and to beef up efforts in the competition preparations.