“Beijing China!”
When Chairman Samaranch read those two words softly, the world boiled over.
When the delegations of other countries had not yet relaxed their nerves to applaud and congratulate, the members of the Chinese Olympic Bidding Group at the scene jumped up for the first time, dressed in red clothes, like a fire that lit and illuminated the entire conference venue, which was 22:08 on July 13, 2001.
The news was very fast, and with a delay of about a minute or two, it was transmitted from Moscow back to Beijing and reached thousands of households.
CCTV Studio, China Millennium Monument, Beijing Television Studio, Beijing Municipal Sports Bureau, Peking University, Coca-Cola Company, Lenovo Group Headquarters, Bars, Squares, Units, Railway Stations, Citizens' Families, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Washington... That night, wherever there was Chinese, it boiled over.
Do you remember who you cheered with on the night of Beijing's successful bid for the Olympic Games?
Date: July 13, 2001, Weather: sunny, venue: World Trade Center, Moscow, Russia.
Early in the morning, in front of the World Trade Center, a number of media from all over the world gathered, and hundreds of reporters carrying "long guns and short cannons" aimed at the gate on the first floor in unison, holding their breath as the Olympic bidding delegations of various cities appeared on the live television screen, and the fingers on the shutter button did not want to relax for a moment, "clicking" and "clicking", afraid of missing the historic picture after a second of rest.
The first presentation group was the Osaka Olympic Bidding Group, which was their presentation time from 9:00 to 10:00 Moscow time, and they arranged for the middle school students to play the violin in the presentation part, followed by the Paris delegation at 10:15, followed by the Toronto team, who arranged for the child stars to sing on stage.
At 12:45 Russian time, the Toronto delegation ended, adjourned, lunch.
The Beijing delegation did not enter the venue until 14:00 p.m., after the leaders of the Olympic bidding group, Liu Qi and Yuan Weimin, had already arrived at the hall, and as soon as the reporter saw them, they immediately flocked to them, wanting to know through them some of the "killer skills" of the Beijing delegation, and several leaders waved their hands and did not speak much.
An hour later, the Beijing team reappeared in front of the reporters, their presentations extended by 15 minutes, all hoping to get a glimpse of the final result from those 15 minutes, but the delegation only hurriedly closed a few pictures and returned.
Of course, the reporters who had been waiting for a long time were not willing, and at the other exit they finally waited for Vice Premier Li Lanqing, who answered all the reporters' questions in just three words: "Confidence!" ”
At 17:30 Russian time, Istanbul, after the Beijing delegation, also completed the presentation, and the Olympic bidding delegations of the five cities completed the presentation.
After the IOC evaluation committee members examined the bid reports of each city, the voting began, and 104 members from non-bidding cities voted.
Chairman Samaranch did not participate in the vote, and of course, He Zhenliang, a member of the Olympic Committee from China, did not participate in the voting.
Regarding voting, there is a small doorway for insiders, and if the scrutineer does not seal the envelope containing the final result, the round of voting is not successful.
The whole venue was surprisingly quiet, and the only sounds that could be heard were everyone's heartbeat, "fluttering" and "fluttering".
At 22:00, the results of the first round of voting came out, the envelope was unsealed, Osaka, which received 6 votes, was out of the first round, Beijing had 44 votes, temporarily ranked first, and the second place Toronto only had 20 votes, and the second round of voting would be held next.
In the early morning of the 13th, Chairman Samaranch's secretary asked He Zhenliang about the correct pronunciation of the two words "Beijing", and he secretly had a bottom in his heart, and when he made a statement in Beijing in the afternoon, He Zhenliang made the opening and final statement, "Our statement was very successful."
Vice Premier Li Lanqing, Beijing Mayor Liu Qi, Director General of the State General Administration of Sports Yuan Weimin, Director of the Beijing Olympic Bidding Commission Lou Dapeng, Secretary General of the Beijing Olympic Bidding Committee Wang Wei, and Image Ambassadors Deng Yaping, Yang Ling, and Yang Lan made statements in turn.
In particular, Vice Premier Li Lanqing's English statement won high praise from the committee members, and the chairman of the Toronto Bidding Committee couldn't help but say after listening to Beijing's statement: "They deserve full marks!" ”。
However, before the results of the second round of voting were announced, it was the least complacent, because of the painful memory of falling to the bottom after the surprise of 2 votes in Monte Carlo in 1993.
The members of the Chinese Olympic Bidding Group in Moscow were so anxious that their hair was almost erect, and at the same time they passed on to each other: "Don't worry, you must hear clearly and then jump." ”
But this time, He Zhenliang is no longer pretending to be calm, his mood has been relatively calm, "I think the probability of this success is greater, because I think we should win this victory." ”
In his bid statement, Ho told Chairman Samaranch and his colleagues: "Whatever choice you make today will go down in history. But there is one decision that is bound to make history."
The second round of voting began, 106 Olympic Committee members participated in the voting, after two minutes of ticket inspection, envelope sealing, the final results came out.
When He Zhenliang saw the sealed envelope handed over to Chairman Samaranch, he secretly said to himself: "We have succeeded!" He determined that no other city except Beijing had the potential to win the second round of voting;
The three scrutineers walked past He Zhenliang, and they all blinked at He, and Samaranch nodded slightly as he passed by, and He Zhenliang was sure that, as he himself said, a decision to make history would become a reality in the next moment.
Beijing 56 votes, Toronto 22 votes, Paris 18 votes, Istanbul 9 votes. Beijing became the host city of the 2008 Olympic Games, and Beijing won!
The applause was thunderous, and the entire World Trade Center in Moscow, Russia, boiled over because of "Beijing".
When He Zhenliang, who was sitting on the stage, was haunted by dreams and countless fantasies came true, even if he firmly expected that his silver hair would still be full of tears: "When Wu Jingguo, a member of the Chinese Taipei Committee, and I hugged, we both burst into tears, and he said to me: 'I am so happy and excited that Chinese won the right to host the Olympic Games for the first time in more than a hundred years, and our common wish has come true.'" ’
I believe that the Chinese who are in tears at this moment, including Taiwan compatriots, Hong Kong and Macao compatriots, and Chinese people all over the world, are far more than just the two of us. Because, everyone understands, the significance of the successful bid is far beyond the scope of sports. ”
Bai Yansong, who served as the host of the live broadcast of the Olympic bid, said "Beijing" a minute earlier than Samaranch, and as soon as Samaranch got up, Bai Yansong said: "The results are out, and Beijing has great hopes...".
The directors were a little anxious, and a question came from the headphones: "Can't say, what if it is wrong?" And the next minute, Samaranch announced to the world, "Beijing."
In the studio in Moscow, Bai Yansong, Ning Xin, and Zhang Bin screamed loudly, completely forgetting that they were still broadcasting the matter, and they took the champagne prepared in advance and drank it all.
All those who came to Moscow for Beijing's bid for the Olympic Games, at that moment, crying, laughing, shouting, shouting, expressed this great joy in their own way: win, Beijing wins, China wins!
Beijing, the city where thousands of lights never sleep, the Chinese Century Altar flowers bloom, and the crowd is excited.
At 10 o'clock Beijing time, the big screen of the Millennium Monument appeared on the live broadcast of the Moscow Olympic bid vote, and the Just-Hot Millennium Monument was momentarily quiet, and at 10:08 Beijing time, Samaranch announced the results.
"Success! Beijing succeeded! China succeeded! banzai! "The leaders of the state sang "Singing the Motherland" together with the masses;
The host of the grand event read aloud in the midst of the noise: "The Olympic spirit is in Beijing, and an open China is taking off!" Students and citizens chanted slogans: "Tonight belongs to Beijing, tonight belongs to China!" ”
In 1896, when the Olympic flame was first lit in Athens, Greece, the fiasco of the Sino-Japanese Sino-Japanese War became an indelible wound in the hearts of Chinese;
The Eight-Power Alliance, the burning of the Yuanmingyuan, the harsh titles of "Sick Man of East Asia" and so on continued to sound; finally at this moment, Beijing won and China won.
On July 13, 2001, People's Daily published the third issue since its inception: "Beijing's Successful Bid for the Olympic Games", the other two copies were "China's First Atomic Bomb Successful Explosion" on October 16, 1964, and the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States on December 16, 1978.
In 2001, the paging business was still in full swing, and when the word "Beijing" was transmitted back to Beijing through live television, the paging lady on duty that day saw a spectacle she had never heard of since she was in the industry:
Hundreds of messages rushed up, almost drowning her and his colleagues, the most common thing was "Beijing won", the young paging lady typed and her hands trembled, one was that the workload was too big, and the other was that she was also shocked by the news, and Beijing won.
In addition to paging, people from all walks of life in all walks of life have been deeply shocked by the two words "Beijing", and everyone knows that through the Olympic Games, the real China and Chinese will be clearly seen by the world, and China's decades of development and efforts to Chinese people deserve to be seriously seen by the world.
That night, 400,000 Beijing citizens spontaneously came to Tiananmen Square and the Millennium Monument, Chang'an Avenue, Hutongkou, university auditoriums, enterprise halls, bars, canteens, stations, and cheers when people were there...
That night, not only in the capital Beijing, the land of Shenzhou was boiling, Zhang Ziyi, a Beijing girl who was working in Taipei, and she still had ten minutes to go to the event, still guarding the TV set in the hotel, almost forgetting work.
I still couldn't hide my joy at the scene of the event, and excitedly shared with the Taiwan compatriots: "I am really happy and very happy!" The Front Page of the Macao Daily published a large report on the front page of "Beijing's successful bid for the Olympic Games, the dreams of the descendants of the world's yanhuang descendants have come true, and they are extremely excited."
Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an, Dalian, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Washington, San Francisco, Tokyo, Paris... That night, where there were Chinese, there was cheering.
That night in Moscow was not over, Mayor Liu Qi appeared in the hall on the first floor, all the media rushed up, the chairs, tables, photography brackets were kicked to the east and west, and people also fell in the crowd and pushed, and they were in a big mess.
The Chinese Embassy in Russia held a grand celebration banquet, at which the girls who sang "Ode to the Olympics" in Montacaro eight years ago also came, and the members of the delegation who had grown up and experienced the two Olympic bids were full of emotions.
On September 23, 1993, In He Zhenliang's memory, it was always as gloomy as the weather that day, and the mood was complicated, and he had to control his expression on the stage with difficulty and congratulate the victor, but as soon as he returned to the hotel, he cried.
The Olympic Organizing Committee called Yang Lan during the Spring Festival in 2001, when she was still confinement, and for this important event, she weaned her daughter in advance, and the work was so busy that she did not need to exercise or control her diet to complete postpartum weight loss.
He Zhenliang once told Yang Lan about a small episode, once for the Beijing Olympic bid to Guatemala to win the support of the Olympic Committee, he sat on the plane piloted by the enthusiastic Olympic Committee of the country, the Olympic Committee's flying skills are not smart, but He Zhenliang worried about his own life and safety at the same time also had to accompany the Olympic Committee to chat, full of smiles.
In 1995, Samaranch personally intervened to prevent Kaohsiung from bidding for the Asian Games, and He Zhenliang thanked him on behalf of the Chinese Olympic Committee, and Samaranch smiled and said that China should give him a reward: "That is China's bid for the Olympic Games again!" ”
Tonight, Beijing did it, China did it. China's development has made the Olympic Organizing Committee see China's strength, and every vote is a heavy expectation of the world for China, and every vote is the world's hope for the future.
All the tears of grievance shed for Montacaro turned into tears of happiness tonight. That night, everyone sang and laughed, hugged, and shed tears, this great joy, we had been prepared for too long, we had waited too long.
Seven years later, as Zhenliang said in his statement, the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games created history, China and the Chinese made history, and in that summer, Beijing left an indelible Olympic glory for the hearts of billions of people around the world, the opening ceremony, the gold and jade medals, "Beijing Welcomes You"...
Everything about the Beijing Olympics is still remembered by the people of the world.
From 2001 to 2021, twenty years have passed, China's growth in the past twenty years has made all Chinese proud and proud, but also let the world look sideways, in February 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, the world will once again focus on Beijing, Beijing will once again show the world today's strong and confident China.
bibliography:
Yang Lan and Zhu Bing, "One Question, One World", Shanghai Literature and Art Publishing House, January 2019
Yang Lan "Questions", Zhejiang Literature and Art Publishing House, March 2020
Bai Yansong "Happy? Changjiang Literature and Art Publishing House, September 2010
Li Fang, "Witness", The Commercial Press, December 2018
Ma Tongbin and Qin Yuanyuan, "Beijing 2008: Before and Behind the Scenes of the Olympic Bid", Beijing Sport University Press, September 2001