The City of Two Olympics | lifted up the beam of light at the end of the tunnel

▲Ji Ye participated in the Winter Olympic Torch Relay. Photo courtesy of Xinhua News Agency

As a double Olympic media person, Xinhua News Agency reporter Ji Ye was also a volunteer at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, participating in volunteer service as an assistant to the head of the National Olympic Committee delegation (NOC), located at the Bird's Nest Station. Ji Ye believes that it is this service that makes him have an indissoluble fate with the Olympic Games. "I remember on the night of the opening ceremony of the 2008 Olympic Games, I was with the head of the delegation, I heard the sound of the countdown, and I was shocked to see the fireworks blooming."

In 2009, after graduating, Ji Ye did not hesitate to apply for Xinhua News Agency and became a sports journalist. Without the Olympics, he thought he might choose other industries.

Joining Xinhua News Agency to work on sports reporting gave him more opportunities to compete with the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics. On the morning of February 4, 2022, Ji Ye participated in the Winter Olympic Torch Relay in Beijing Olympic Forest Park. As a journalist who has been following the preparations for the Winter Olympics in recent years, he feels very lucky to be a torchbearer on the opening day of the Winter Olympics.

As a journalist, Ji Ye interviewed the whole process of the Winter Olympic torch from the collection of design plans, to the deepening of modifications, and then to the final release; he also reported on the successful collection of Winter Olympic torches in Greece and a number of domestic fire display activities. But on the day of the torch relay, he was still very excited when he finished the pass with the torchbearer in front of him, watched the Olympic fire so closely, and personally raised the torch and ran forward.

The Winter Olympic Torch Relay lasted for 3 days and involved about 1,200 torchbearers. Among them, there are about 50 torchbearers in the closed loop of the Winter Olympics. Most of the people who traveled to the torch relay site in the same car as him were IOC members, including Russia's "pole vault queen" Isinbayeva, South Korean table tennis star Yoo Seung-min, and Navarre Mutawakil, who served as chairman of the IOC's Rio Olympic Coordination Committee. Ji Ye told them that he was a Xinhua News Agency sports reporter and introduced them to the story behind the torch design. When they heard that the design of the Winter Olympic torch was inspired by a fallen leaf with the pattern of both the auspicious clouds of the 2008 Olympic Games and the snowflakes representing the Winter Olympics, they picked up their torches and studied them carefully.

Ji Ye believes that it is the unremitting efforts of generations of Xinhua people that Xinhua News Agency can become an international news agency recognized by the International Olympic Committee in 2019. At the Winter Olympics, Xinhua News Agency sent more than 380 editorial staff to participate in the coverage of the Beijing Winter Olympics, and more than 160 reporters entered the closed loop for interviews. "I have the privilege of being one of them, telling the world the story of the Beijing Winter Olympics and recording a wonderful, extraordinary and remarkable Olympic event."

In terms of media service innovation, Ji Ye participated in the construction of the Info system and innovatively built a series of media service work, "For example, providing live video on demand on the Info system, including online questions, allows journalists to interview without going to the press conference." ”

Today, with the development of the Winter Olympic Games, Ji Ye is still making unremitting efforts.

Source: Winter Olympics

Edited by Han Ye

Process Editor Liu Weili