"Winter Olympic Events"
With 29 days to go until the opening of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, today's "Winter Olympic Events" series of feature films takes you on a journey back to the important events that have taken place in the history of the Winter Olympics!
Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics
Today we continue to review the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, this Winter Olympics in addition to Yang Yang won the first gold medal of the Chinese Winter Olympics, there was also a sensational event in the world, that is, the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics in the bidding process of the scandal of bribery was exposed.
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In 1998, Salt Lake City, the capital of Utah, won the right to host the 2002 Winter Olympics with an overwhelming advantage. But at the end of the year, a private letter was made public by the American media, triggering the famous "Salt Lake City scandal" in the history of the Winter Olympics.
Salt Lake City's successful bid for the Olympic Games was related to the bribery of IOC members, pushing then-IOC President Samaranch to the cusp of public opinion. Soon, a reform initiative began.
In the view of Fang Xuefeng, a special expert of the Chinese Olympic Committee, due to the bribery incident in Salt Lake City (the bid for the Winter Olympic Games), the then president of the International Olympic Committee Samaranch had to personally go to the US Congress for questioning, and the IOC also expelled some members, and this matter also caused a very big response from the entire international sports world, including the US media also carried out many attacks on the International Committee.
In order to make the olympic bidding process more fair and clean, starting from the 2008 Summer Olympic Games, the ownership of the hosting rights will no longer be decided by the participation of nearly 100 members of the International Olympic Committee, but by the Executive Committee with 11 executive committees; at the same time, in order to eradicate the phenomenon of bribery, the Olympic Committee members will also be prohibited from visiting the cities that bid for the Olympic Games.
In addition to the fight against corruption, the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics saw two major events that drove the course of Olympic history: one was anti-doping, and the other was a change in the program.
Fang Xuefeng said, "Since the establishment of the World Anti-Doping Organization in 1999, it was only at the 2002 Winter Olympics that athletes were fully tested for anti-doping, and cross-country skiing and biathlon athletes have been disqualified for doping violations, which now seems to be the most important event for the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics, that is, to start a comprehensive anti-doping test." ”
"There is also the question of how the Olympic games can be more fashionable, in fact, since the 2002 (Salt Lake City) Winter Olympics, one is freestyle skiing, in addition, the steel frame snowmobile project that has been absent from the Olympic Games for many years has also re-entered the Olympic Games, which also shows that more emerging projects can join the Olympic family."
In Fang Xuefeng's view, the significance of the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics is actually the three major challenges of the Olympic Games in the 21st century, and the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics have responded to them and handled the problems of relevant aspects relatively well. Of course, these challenges are still the three main events that have influenced the development of the modern Olympic movement to this day.