Author: Zheng Aotian
Source: Global People Magazine
On the afternoon of February 4, Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Beijing to attend the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics and related activities.
"This time, you can be said to have fulfilled our 'Winter Olympic Covenant.'" President Xi Jinping warmly welcomes friends from afar.
Putin said that the exchange of Visits at the Olympic Games has become a manifestation and a good tradition of close relations between the heads of state of Russia and China. He believed that after careful preparations, Chinese people would certainly be able to present the world with the highest level of winter Olympics.
A pact on the snow and ice
The "Winter Olympic Treaty" between the heads of state of China and Russia is scheduled for 2014. During the Spring Festival eight years ago, President Xi Jinping went to Russia at the invitation of President Putin to attend the opening ceremony of the Sochi Winter Olympics and congratulated his neighbors on the occasion. The two met and met again in Beijing eight years later.
At that time, the venue for the 2022 Winter Olympics had not yet been finalized, but the agreement was made early. In 2015, when the bid for the Beijing Winter Olympics was successful, Putin sent a congratulatory message for the first time, and later he became the first foreign head of state to clearly state that he would attend the Beijing Winter Olympics, and repeatedly expressed his confidence in China's success in hosting the Games.
"I want to share with my Chinese friends the joy of hosting this year's world-important sporting event, the Winter Olympics." Before his visit to China, Putin expressed his expectations. This trip to Beijing is his first overseas visit this year, and the only one so far.
The afternoon before the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics, President Xi Jinping met with President Putin.
On the afternoon of February 4, 2022, President Xi Jinping held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing. Image source: Xinhua News Agency
During the talks, the leaders of the two countries jointly announced the official launch of the China-Russia Year of Sports Exchanges. The Year of Sports Exchange, the eighth thematic year between China and Russia, will carry out around 500 different events in the fields of mass and youth sports, education, sports science and talent development, the most successful of which will be held regularly.
China and Russia have carried out a lot of cooperation in the field of ice and snow, such as the China-Russia Winter Youth Games, China's ice hockey clubs playing in the "Russian Mainland Ice Hockey League", and teams in the border areas of the two countries will hold ice hockey friendly matches on Heilongjiang (Amur River). In June 2018, President Xi Jinping and President Putin also watched a friendly ice hockey match between the youth of the two countries in Tianjin.
In June 2018, President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin watched the China-Russia Youth Ice Hockey Friendly Tournament in Tianjin. Image source: Xinhua News Agency
Nearly 60 years old began to learn to skate
Russia is a big country in ice and snow sports, Putin is also called "ice and snow enthusiast", like skiing, biathlon, figure skating and ski jumping, but also participate in the All-Russian Night Hockey League Competition, in the competition held in May 2021, Putin opened 30 seconds to break the goal, one person scored 8 goals, the performance can be described as professional.
Ice sports are the "new skills" that Putin learned when he was nearly 60 years old.
In 2007, the Russian city of Sochi won the right to host the 2014 Winter Olympics. Putin sees hosting the Winter Olympics as a window to showcase Russia's development achievements to the world. In order to achieve this goal, he not only vigorously supported the development of ice and snow sports, but also learned to skate.
Putin participates in ice hockey.
Putin explained why he can't skate: "When I was skating for the first time when I was a child, I accidentally made a 'big fork', and I thought skating was not suitable for me. He laughed and recalled the scene: "The first time I slid up, I thought about how to stop, and in order not to fall to the ground with a bang, I supported the edge of the ice rink." ”
But in a 2011 meeting with Turkish Winter Universiade athletes, Putin promised he would learn to skate to advance ice sports. To show his determination, he invited former Russian ice hockey player and world champion Alexei Kasatonov to be his coach.
Training usually takes place after midnight work and lasts half an hour. At first, Putin moved on the ice with the help of a chair, and two months later, he not only learned to skate, but also "couldn't wait" to go to the ice rink to try his hand.
In April 2011, Putin trained for 40 minutes with Russian junior hockey players. After the training, Putin, who was breathing heavily, said: "Ice hockey is indeed an exciting and energetic sport. ”
Since then, Putin's love for ice hockey has been out of control. At his initiative, Russia established the Night Hockey League, and he also participated in exhibition matches many times, and his results continued to improve.
Compared with his performance on the ice rink, Putin's performance on the snow field is more comfortable. Before becoming president, Putin was a ski enthusiast. Later, despite his busy schedule, he would still use his holidays to ski all over Russia.
In January 2014, Putin skied during an inspection of the Sochi Winter Olympics facilities.
Putin has always preferred skiing on the grounds that "skiing is more elegant". Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko once said of Putin's skiing skills: "You can try to compete with Vladimir (Putin), but you may not be able to catch up with him." ”
Bring the fire to Sochi
Putin's ice and snow love affair cannot avoid one city, and that is Sochi.
Sochi is Putin's favorite holiday destination, nestled on the Black Sea coast and famous for its hot springs and ski resorts. During the Soviet era, Sochi, with its pleasant climate, was once the most popular health city in the Soviet Union. It was during his convalescence in Sochi that the Soviet writer Ostrovsky completed the famous novel "How Steel is Made".
However, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russians with declining incomes reduced their vacation expenses, and Russia's "new rich" preferred to travel abroad. Sochi, which has long relied on tourism and government funding, has gradually fallen into the cold and its economy has been in trouble.
Sochi
As early as the late 1980s and 1990s, Sochi twice bid for the Winter Olympics, but unfortunately both times did not make it into the list of candidate cities. In 2006, Sochi again proposed to bid for the Olympic Games, this time with the "Olympic Ambassador" Putin.
In February 2007, the IOC sent an evaluation mission to Sochi for a three-day evaluation. Putin put a lot of work down, accompanied sochi the whole journey, and promised to invest $12 billion to make sochi an Olympic city with international standards.
However, in the IOC's bid city assessment report, Sochi's rating was "very good", slightly inferior to the "best" rating of the other two competing cities. As a result, when the IOC held a plenary session in July 2007 to vote on the host city of the 2014 Winter Olympics, Putin once again stepped out, made a final statement in English, and suddenly changed to French to say the last sentence of the statement, "All Russians look forward to your decision", which shocked everyone on the scene and helped Russians finally realize the dream of the Winter Olympics.
In addition to bidding for the Winter Olympics, Putin has also arranged many international conferences to be held in Sochi, so that the beauty of Sochi can be displayed in front of the world again and again.
With this demonstration effect, Sochi has become a tourist attraction again, with Russia's rich and famous people building luxury villas, and tourists and tourism investors from all over the world flocking to it. A real estate agent in Sochi commented that Putin almost single-handedly brought Sochi red.
In the eyes of the outside world, the success of the Sochi Winter Olympics, as well as the revival and prosperity of Sochi, symbolize the recovery of Russia's economy and society since Putin came to power, and are an important milestone in his ruling career. For Putin, the Sochi Winter Olympics are undoubtedly one of his proudest achievements.
Column Editor-in-Chief: Gu Wanquan Text Editor: Lu Xiaochuan Caption Source: Visual China Image Editor: Zi Xi
Source: Author: Global People Magazine