In the Olympic Park in Albertville, France, children play football. Photo by Liu Lingling, a reporter of this newspaper
A corner of the Winter Olympic Museum in Albertville, France. Photo by Liu Lingling, a reporter of this newspaper
In Innsbruck, Austria, local citizens skate. Profile picture
The Cessana-San Cicario Ski Resort, which hosted the biathlon at the Turin Winter Olympics. Profile picture
The venues of the Winter Olympics have valuable economic and social value. Some Winter Olympic host countries strive to maximize the benefits of the use of the heritage of the Winter Olympics, promote the long-term use of Winter Olympic venues, and make them continue to benefit the people in the post-Olympic era.
Albertville, France
The legacy of the Winter Olympics adds momentum to the development of the small city
Reporter Liu Lingling
Albertville was the site of the 1992 Winter Olympics. The town is less than 4 hours away by train from Paris, the capital of France, with occasional mountain ranges and snow-covered summits, and the end of the journey with views of Lake Bourget, France's largest natural glacial lake.
With 14 venues, the Albertville Winter Olympics is the most dispersed Winter Olympics to date. After the end of the Winter Olympics, the competition venue at that time will continue to maintain its original sports function to welcome visitors from all over the world, or upgrade and transform to achieve "re-employment", or transform into a cultural and leisure place for citizens.
Inside the Winter Olympic Museum in Albertville, a dynamic map details the distribution of venues for the 1992 Winter Olympics. In that year, 18 indoor events, including short track speed skating and figure skating, were held in Albertville, and the rest were held in the mountains of Albertville's Savoie Province.
Lodowick Betagnolo, director of the Albertville Tourism and Leisure Centre, said that France had taken into account the development and sustainable use of the competition venue at the beginning of the preparations for the Albertville Winter Olympics.
The albertville tourism and leisure centre is located in a complex that was the Olympic hall of the Winter Olympics in 1992 and is home to a figure skating venue. "The hall was built with practicality in mind as a competition venue. Temporary facilities such as some spectator seats and decorative buildings that are only useful for the Olympic Games are removable, while skating venues and event halls have been retained. Betagnolo said.
After the Winter Olympics, the French government invested 800,000 euros (about 6.9 yuan for 1 euro) to build an indoor climbing center, add a tourist center, and open the Winter Olympic Museum in 2019. Today, this comprehensive venue not only provides high-quality skating training venues for different groups such as professional athletes, ordinary enthusiasts and teenagers, but also provides cultural and leisure activities such as rock climbing and exhibition viewing, and has become one of the favorite leisure places for local citizens.
The venue where the opening and closing ceremonies were held that year has been expanded into the Olympic Park, which has become a good place for people to exercise and relax. Betagnolo pointed out that the additional venues built by Albertville for the Winter Olympics have basically been reasonably arranged and utilized after the games, which have played their landmark, functional and educational roles while adding development momentum to this small city with a population of less than 20,000. "Although these venues rarely hold large-scale commercial events to generate income, the greenery in the park and the laughter in the sports venues make the town more vivid and people's lives happier." Betagnolo said.
The snow sports venues embedded in the Alps quickly gained popularity after the Winter Olympics. The Northern Recess Ski Resort, La Plagne Ski Resort and Courchevel Ski Resort, which hosted the Winter Olympic Games, have all developed into famous ski resorts in Europe. Based on rich event experience and perfect ski infrastructure, these ski resorts continue to improve and upgrade, and develop in a more professional direction, not only to undertake a variety of international large-scale ski events, but also to provide convenient and comfortable services for ordinary tourists.
Taking the Courchevel Snow Resort as an example, after the Albertville Winter Olympics, the local government focused on tapping the advantages of this world-class snow resort and building it into a world-class sports event venue and tourist resort. In 2023, the World Alpine Skiing Championships will be held here. In addition to skiing services in winter, the ski resort also offers a range of leisure facilities and in summer activities such as hiking, mountain biking, and fireworks festivals.
August Picole, deputy mayor of Albertville, said that in order to connect the 14 venues of the Albertville Winter Olympics, Savoie has built a high-speed railway in the main competition area, and the valuable wealth left by the Albertville Winter Olympics has greatly promoted the development of the local ice and snow industry and tourism industry. Today, Savoie is one of the world's top ski resorts, and nearly half of Albertville's visitors come for snow sports. We look forward to more participation in international ice and snow events in the future." ”
Innsbruck, Austria
Expansion of comprehensive facilities in addition to the Winter Olympic venues
Our reporter Flowers bloomed
The Austrian city of Innsbruck is located in the heart of the Alps and offers a unique geographical advantage for snow sports. The site hosted the Winter Olympics in 1964 and 1976, and the Winter Youth Olympics in 2012.
The famous local Bergisel Ski Resort, built in 1926, carries the history of the Winter Olympics full of People in Innsbruck, where the spark of the two Winter Olympics was ignited. Since the First Nordic Ski World Championships were held in 1933, international ski events have been held here almost every year.
In 1999, the City of Innsbruck proposed a plan to renovate the Bergisel Ski Slopes, believing that some of the facilities of the venue were significantly aged and did not meet contemporary international standards, and hoped that the venue would not only meet the requirements of professional sports events in the future, but also carry more public functions.
After evaluation, the City of Innsbruck invited six well-known architectural firms to bid for the design, and the work of the British female architect Zaha Hadid won. Construction of the new ski slopes began in May 2001 and was opened to the public in September 2002. The entire project cost around 15.4 million euros.
The newly built Bergisel Ski Platform is more than 90 meters long and the tower is 50 meters high, and its design is like a swept line, creating a sense of elegance and high-speed movement through a minimalist aesthetic. After its construction and renovation, the facility continued to serve as an important venue for professional athletes to train and host events, as well as a landmark for tourists to visit. The renovation project won the 2002 "Austrian Tourism State Architecture Award".
A new specialty restaurant has been opened on the ground floor of the Burgisel Ski Resort, while a 360-degree viewing platform and a landscape restaurant have been set up at the top of the tower. Visitors can enjoy the view of downtown Innsbruck and the Alps.
In addition to the historic Bergisel ski slopes, the small town of Eagles in Innsbruck has a Winter Olympic heritage such as the artificial ice track and the Olympic Stadium, which hosted the Winter Olympics. In order to achieve efficient use, the two venues have undergone several renovations and are now part of the Olympic World project in Innsbruck.
On the basis of retaining and improving the original Winter Olympic venues, the Innsbruck Olympic World Project has also built more complete and advanced venues to form a comprehensive venue for various sports. For example, the "Hydro Arena" can not only carry out winter sports such as speed skating, ice hockey and curling, but also carry out various non-winter sports such as ball sports, boxing, wrestling and indoor rock climbing.
The Olympic World, built on the legacy of the Winter Olympics, also takes advantage of infrastructure facilities to provide citizens with a wealth of cultural and sports activities. Jessica, a citizen of Innsbruck, told reporters: "Here you can skate in winter, open a car theater in summer, and participate in various exhibitions in spring and autumn, which greatly enriches people's lives." ”
Turin, Italy
Winter Olympic venues and ski resorts are in high use
Reporter Xie Yahong
In 2006, the northern Italian city of Turin successfully hosted the Winter Olympics. So far, the Turin Winter Olympic venues and snow fields are in high use, and the flow of people is endless.
The Turin Winter Olympics adopt an urban/mountain model: ice events are held in sports venues in the city, and snow events are held in the mountains outside the city.
Sergio Chiam Parino, then mayor of Turin at the 2006 Winter Olympics, said that in the preparation and hosting of the Winter Olympics, the Italian Olympic Committee, local governments and the Turin Winter Olympic Organizing Committee coordinated and supported each other, avoiding the phenomenon of going their own way, and all kinds of venues were unified planning, including enhancing the positioning of tourism functions in the post-Winter Olympic era.
Prior to the 2006 Winter Olympics, Turin hosted events such as the World Cup and the World Expo, and already had several large venues. The Turin Winter Olympics have been repurposed in some venues, such as the opening and closing ceremonies held at the Torino Olympic Stadium, which was once home to Serie A side Juventus, and figure skating and most of the ice hockey matches were held in the temporarily remodeled Palavela Arena and the Turin Convention Center, respectively. After the Winter Olympics, these venues will either return to their original use or continue to host international events as winter sports venues.
The new venues for the Turin Winter Olympics focus on versatility to ensure they are fully utilized after the games. The Olympic Sports Palace, which hosts the final of ice hockey, was completed on the eve of the Winter Olympics and is one of the largest indoor sports fields in Italy. The venue's internal facilities are very flexible, the ceiling height can be adjusted, the venue can be lifted, the seats can be moved, not only to undertake basketball, volleyball and other events, but also to become one of the important concert venues in Italy.
The Lingotto Oval is the speed skating venue for the Turin Winter Olympics and, as part of its adjacent Lingotto Exhibition Centre, has hosted major exhibitions such as the Turin International Book Fair. In addition, the Turin Municipal Government is currently renovating the Olympic Village buildings in the city, which will be used as social housing at preferential prices for students, workers and other groups in the future.
At present, Turin has become an important ice and snow sports center in the world, in addition to hosting various events and receiving athletes from all over the world for training, many ski enthusiasts from all over the world also come to visit. The Galaxy Alpine Ski Resort, which has hosted the Winter Olympics, has become the largest winter ski resort in Italy. In addition, Turin has also become the fourth most touristic city in Italy.
Sergio Scamuzzi, a professor of sociology at the University of Turin in Italy, said the Winter Olympics "shaped a new international image of the city", which gave people around the world a new look at the city and made citizens proud of the city and its ability to innovate and organize major events.
Typography: Cai Huawei
People's Daily (2022-04-19 18th edition)