OlymPicks: Olympic Venues Opening to the Public, Chinese Athletes Awarded Medals After Russians Caught Doping
In OlymPicks, we highlight the news, gossip, and developments following the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics and beyond.
Olympic Venues Set to Open to the Public
The capital now has two Olympics – Summer and Winter Games – under its belt. And although both are done and dusted, the venues that hosted their myriad of events are now opening, or in the case of a few, re-opening, to the public soon.
Here’s a look at what’s open and will soon open.
Shougang Park
The massive former steel mill, Shougang was open to the public as an attraction in itself prior to the Winter Olympics, but this has changed thanks to the venue hosting the skiing Big Air events.
That being said, besides being able to climb atop the massive ski jump – you can’t slide down it, unfortunately – guides are on hand to point out where Eileen Gu landed her double cork 1620, and you can take a peek inside the Beijing 2022 Olympic Organizing Committee’s headquarters.
Ice/Water Cube & National Stadium
These two fixtures of the 2008 Summer Olympics saw new purpose in the 2022 Games, with the National Stadium utilized for opening and closing ceremonies, and the Water Cube, the swimming and diving location, rechristened as the “Ice Cube”, being used for curling events.
While the Ice/Water Cube is slated to reopen to the public in April, possibly serving as a water park and public swimming pool once again, there’s not been word as to when the National Stadium will reopen. If it’s anything to go by, the stadium had been open for public tours and the occasional themed event after 2008, so it’ll most likely revert to this.
The Ice Ribbon
This state of the art, wild-looking facility was one of many new venues specially designed for the Winter Games – seeing use as a speed skating event venue.
It was announced on Mar 21 that the Ice Ribbon would soon be open to the public, but the announcement, put out by the 2022 Organizing Committee, didn’t elaborate on what’d be going on there. Rumor has it that it might be used for ice festivals or, perhaps more simply, ice skating.
In Other Olympics News…
Russian women’s race walk champion Yelena Lashmanova, who took a record breaking gold for the 20km walking race at the London 2012 Olympics, was suspended from competing for two years following the revelation that she had been taking banned substances. She was also stripped of her gold medal. Another Russian speed walker, Olga Kaniskina, who took silver in the same event, was stripped of her medal after a reexamination of samples from 2015.
Who’s taken the gold and silver? Team China, of course. Chenyang Shijie, who had originally taken bronze, has now been awarded gold, while fellow Olympian Liu Hong was awarded silver.
READ: OlymPicks: China Tops Paralympic Medal Table, Eileen Gu Spotted in Taikooli
Images: Christian Lue and Hong Jiang (via Unsplash), china.org.cn, news.cgtn.com,
