The world significance of the Beijing Winter Olympics

Ice and snow face, Olympic physique, Chinese spirit.

In the middle of winter, on the streets of Beijing, the "City of the Two Olympics", the "ice piers" and "snow melting" are particularly eye-catching. After more than 2,000 days and nights of meticulous preparations, the Beijing Winter Olympics are about to open, and nearly 3,000 athletes from about 90 countries and regions are ready to go.

From 2008 to 2022, from Beijing to Beijing, the Olympics once again joined hands with China. The "Ice Ribbon" flutters, the "Snow Ruyi" dominates the mountaintop, the "Ice Sail" travels against the wind, and the "Snow Flying Sky" has long sleeves dancing...

"The successful hosting of the Beijing Winter Olympics and the Winter Paralympic Games will not only enhance our confidence in realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, but also help to show the good image of our country and nation committed to promoting the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind, sunshine, prosperity and openness, and enhance the understanding and understanding of the people of all countries about China." As General Secretary Xi Jinping said, the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games are not only a sports event, but also reflect China's value pursuit of promoting the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind, so it has far-reaching world significance.

The Olympics is peace

This is the first global comprehensive sports event to be held as scheduled since the outbreak of the new crown pneumonia epidemic.

"The world is in the haze of the epidemic, fortunately we still have the Winter Olympics, which is a great thing. So, I want to thank China, the Olympic family, for hosting the Winter Olympics at such a difficult time. Legendary American skier Sean White spoke out about the athletes.

The "City of Double Olympics" flashes the dazzling glory of a city, and also carries the grand mind and lofty pursuit of a nation.

The COVID-19 pandemic, which has lasted for more than two years, is a rarity in the century and has caused great trauma to the world, no less than a protracted war.

Looking back at modern history, the Olympic Games have been cancelled three times by war: 1916 during World War I, 1940 and 1944 during World War II. Since World War II, the Olympics have not been postponed until 2020, when the Tokyo Olympics were postponed to 2021 due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. The epidemic once brought an "existential threat" to the Olympic Games, but the Olympic Movement and the Olympic Games have withstood the test.

"People first, life first" and "athletes as the center" – this is the encounter between the great anti-epidemic spirit and the Olympic purpose. The Beijing Winter Olympics, which is held as scheduled on the basis of the world's recognized effectiveness in China's fight against the epidemic, will implement a complete closed-loop management system with a whole process, point-to-point and full closure, so that the quadrennial enthusiasm will become a reality in the context of the epidemic and will surely write a new legend in the history of the modern Olympic movement.

George Hessler, a veteran international communication strategist in the United States, said that the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics will undoubtedly further strengthen the concept that "events can be safely carried out during the epidemic" and ultimately prove that the Olympic movement can overcome every challenge, and future generations can still celebrate the great human spirit through the Olympic Games.

In the vast river of history, the rise and fall is commonplace, why can the Olympic Games originating in ancient Greece have such lasting vitality? Looking back at the vicissitudes of the modern Olympic Era, the answer is self-evident - "The purpose of the Olympic Movement is to make sports serve human development, so as to create a better, more peaceful and respectful world." ”

"Sport is peace." It was the cry of the ancient Greeks to "stop the war", the expectation of Coubertin to "summon the young people of the world to compete on the sports field, not to fight on the battlefield", and the solemn commitment of the "Olympic Truce Resolution" proposed by China and signed by 186 member states.

Former Greek Prime Minister Papandreou believes that as the first city to host both the Summer Olympic Games and the Winter Olympic Games, the historic Beijing is continuing to make history, "I understand that the core value of the community of human destiny is peace, and the core value of the Olympic Games is also peace."

From Athens to Beijing, from the Olympic Games to the Spring Festival, from the ancient Olympic movement to the modern Olympic movement, spanning more than two thousand years of history and crossing the gap between Eastern and Western cultures, this cultural event symbolizes that the civilizations of the East and the West travel in opposite directions and meet each other across time and space.

"The Beijing Winter Olympics coincides with the Chinese Lunar New Year Festival, the Olympic Games is a festival for young people around the world to share happiness, show themselves, and work hard, and the Spring Festival is a traditional festival for Chinese family reunions and looking forward to a better future. Lou Xiaoqi, president of Civilization magazine, said.

The Olympics, the joy of human destiny

The Olympic light and the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind shine together, witnessing the growth of Beijing and the progress of China.

"When we win, we cheer together. Even if we fail, we will comfort and encourage each other. Hockey makes us better. This winter vacation, Yan Yu, a young player of tsinghua Xiaoice team, showed enthusiasm on the ice rink.

White helmet, bright yellow snow suit, the same winter, 46-year-old Yanqing farmer Li Yanxia busy with her child's lunch, she went straight to the snow field: "Sliding down from the top of the mountain, the ears are full of whistling wind, the world only ice and snow and themselves ..."

The modern development of ice and snow sports, which emerged in high latitudes, has long been limited to high-income countries. Today, from the traditional snow climbing plow and ice gyro in northern China to the fashionable ice and snow sports with advanced equipment, people have seen the abundance of the material world and the spiritual world Chinese the ice and snow. From the successful bid for the Winter Olympic Games to October 2021, the number of mainland residents who have participated in ice and snow sports has reached 346 million, and the participation rate of ice and snow sports has reached 24.56%, which has achieved the goal of "driving 300 million people to participate in ice and snow sports".

Ice and snow are also golden mountains and silver mountains. Chongli, a small town with a population of just over 100,000, has become a well-known ice and snow resort at home and abroad. Industries such as snow field construction, snow equipment sales, and ice and snow training are booming, and 1 in 5 people in the local area is engaged in ice and snow-related work.

On the grassland of Zhangjiakou Dam, tall windmills are dotted with windmills, and the slowly rotating wind wheel blades make "the wind of Zhangbei light up the lights of Beijing". Snow covers the green mountains, competition venues and supporting facilities rise from the ground, and high-speed trains come through the winter mountains, telling the great changes that have taken place in this land due to the Winter Olympics.

Sports development, humanistic prosperity, economic take-off, scientific and technological progress; entering the Olympic Games, experiencing the Olympic Games, hosting the Olympic Games; from poor and weak to rich and strong, from closed to open, from following the trend to leading the times... Today's China, which has been deeply integrated into the contemporary world, is using the Olympic language to seek common ground while reserving differences, and advocates consensus on the Olympic stage.

In the past century, the Olympic Games are a mirror for the world to perceive China's development.

China's return to the IOC family coincided with the surge of economic globalization and the beginning of China's reform and opening up. For more than 40 years, China's Olympic road has been intertwined with the process of reform and opening up and the pace of integration into the world economy. From the "Green Olympics, Science and Technology Olympics, and Humanistic Olympics" in 2008 to the "Green, Shared, Open, and Clean" in 2022, the image of a responsible big country is clearly highlighted.

"The great significance of the Olympic Games is that it not only makes human society feel, witness and believe in the values we should share in its unique way of sports competition, but also reminds us with periodic repetition: only its rarity is precious; only its difficulty must be cherished." Wan Junren, a professor at the School of Humanities of Tsinghua University, sighed, "The Olympic torch is nothing less than a beam of fire that illuminates the prospects of a community with a shared future for mankind. ”

The light of the Olympic Games is a tribute to China's development and a joyous song for human development. Togo near the equator, Zimbabwe at 010 degrees Celsius in winter, the Philippines, which heats up all year round... More and more athletes from low latitudes and developing countries are embarking on the Winter Olympics with dreams and love, across temperatures and distances. They proved to the world with unremitting efforts that "the important thing of the Olympic Games is not victory, but participation." ”

"The Beijing Winter Olympics will be the best gift in the world to the people of the Chinese year of the Tiger!" May the world be more united! Bach is looking forward to the opening of the Beijing Winter Olympics.

The Olympics, we compete like this

In the Olympic arena, what is exciting is the "faster, higher, stronger" transcendence.

Just as jamaican Usain Bolt won the 100m gold medal in a staggering 9.69 seconds at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, a shining scene in the history of athletics that represents humanity's unremitting challenge to its own limits.

In the Olympic games, what is admirable is the feeling of "more unity".

1998 Nagano Winter Olympics, men's 10 km cross-country skiing competition. Philip Boyt, from Kenya, reached the finish line in the end, a full 20 minutes slower than the first place. At the request of the three winners, the ceremony was postponed. Champion Norwegian athlete Dali stood in front of the finish line to greet Boyt and gave him a big hug.

The bridges of friendship are getting wider and wider. From the Barcelona Olympic Games "Forever Friends" to the Nagano Winter Olympics "Let the World Unite into a Flower", from the Athens Olympic Games "Welcome Home" to the Beijing Olympic Games "One World, One Dream"... Over the past hundred years, the Olympic Games have not only challenged the limits of the human body in competition, but also a "sport" that reshapes people's concepts, leading the all-round development of mankind and the harmonious progress of the world.

History candidly tells people that the Olympics are not the whole world. In the more than one hundred years of the history of the modern Olympic Games, mankind has experienced bloody hot wars, cold cold wars, and resistance to the Olympic Games confined to ideology and national interests...

In an era of increasing uncertainty, only by uniting and cooperating can we work together to meet the common challenges facing mankind; it is undoubtedly a reversal of history to take the neighbor as a barrier, to form cliques, to exclude dissidents, to engage in "small circles", and to divide camps according to ideology.

Benign competition based on common progress is the force of human progress, and the oppressive "competition" obsessed with zero-sum games is the source of world turmoil. "Sport is competition, but this competition guides human beings to constantly push the limits of the body, so that human beings are healthier, sunny, positive and optimistic." Zhu Lei, vice president of Wuhan University of Physical Education, said that this is also the meaning of the community of human destiny.

History has powerfully shown that the Olympics can illuminate the future of the world.

In the process of the development of human civilization with twists and turns, the significance of the Olympic Games has long gone far beyond the sports competition itself. Here, there are not only achievements, gold medals, victories and losses, but also communication, understanding and mutual learning.

Win-win cooperation and joint progress are not only the responsibility of the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind, but also the proposition of Olympic values. "Countries should cooperate with each other in an equal mindset. Cooperation does not exclude competition, which is not to defeat one side, but to promote common well-being through a benign and upward interaction. Zhu Lei said.

It was a moment worth looking back on: the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, the men's 500m final in short track speed skating. Ice knives slashed, ice chips splashed, the wind sounded... 39.584 seconds! The 23-year-old Wu Dajing rode the dust and was the first to cross the finish line, and a new world record was born! "My real opponent is myself," Wu Dajing, who won China's first gold medal in the men's short track speed skating event in the history of the Winter Olympics, sees the competition on the ice rink.

Regarding the growing nationalism and protectionism of a few countries in the world and the risk of political confrontation, Bach stressed: "We need to value and emphasize the Olympic values of peace, solidarity, respect and unity that have been shaped for each other and for the global sports rules." By practicing solidarity and strengthening it, we can show that international cooperation with mutual respect can produce better and fairer results than isolationism. ”

This is also the ice and snow of the "City of The Two Olympics" - highly consistent with the Olympic spirit, showing the ideal and responsibility of China and the world to share opportunities and achieve mutual benefit and win-win results.

Compete like the Olympics! Unite like the Olympics! "Together with the Olympics to the future"!

(Original title: Ice and Snow Reflect the Fate of Mankind - The World Significance of the Beijing Winter Olympics)

Column Editor-in-Chief: Zhang Wu Text Editor: Song Yanlin Title Image Source: Xinhua News Agency Photo Editor: Shao Jing

Source: Author: Guangming Daily