Agency :
Citing the safe and satisfying experiences for athletes in China, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach hailed the Beijing 2022 Winter Games as a great success, two days before the closing ceremony.
As the first Winter Olympics taking place amid the Covid-19 pandemic, the Beijing 2022 Games have earned high praise from participating athletes and officials from around the world for the effective closed-loop management that keeps everyone safe, and for the cutting-edge venues that help facilitate Olympians to perform at their highest level, Bach said.
“To measure these successes there are two criteria, which depend on each other. First the athletes and second the venue and the villages,” Bach said during a news conference at Beijing 2022’s Main Media Center on Friday.
“Here in Beijing it is very obvious that the athletes are more than happy. They are extremely satisfied with the venues, with the villages, with the services having been offered and with the safety within the closed loop under these very difficult circumstances under the fast-spreading Omicron variant of Covid-19.
“The athletes are responding with outstanding performances and with, from my point of view, unprecedented Olympic spirit. The intensity of this Olympic experience was above and beyond what I have experienced before at other Olympic Games,” he said.
With the curtain set to drop on the Games on Sunday night, some of the highlights of Beijing 2022, whether exceptional athletic breakthroughs or heartwarming stories behind the scenes, will be etched in history and long remembered by all witnesses including himself, Bach added.
The interaction between Chinese mixed double curlers Ling Zhi and Fan Suyuan and their US opponents Christopher Plys and Vicky Persinger after a game last week when they exchanged gifts to show friendship and mutual respect was among the moments in Beijing when the Olympic spirit blazed bright, added Bach.
“All these showed that the Olympic Games and the Olympic athletes are really beyond the divisive issues we are facing in the world now and the high tensions we are going through on the political side,” said the former West German Olympic champion in fencing in the men’s team foil at the 1976 Montreal Games.
