Beijing 2022 gearing up for Olympic test events

BEIJING - Preparations are underway for test events ahead of the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, with organizers keen to deliver on their promise of a "fantastic, extraordinary and excellent" Winter Games.

Entitled "Experience Beijing", the 2022 organizing committee has arranged 15 test events for the Winter Olympic Games and five for the Paralympic Winter Games.

The first test event is the FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup on February 15-16, 2020. Comprising Downhill and Super-G disciplines, the event will be held in Yanqing District, around 90km northwest of Beijing, where the brand new National Alpine Skiing Center is set to be completed by October this year.

The organizing committee for the FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup consists of members from the Beijing 2022 organizing committee, the Chinese Skiing Association, the Beijing Sports Bureau and other related departments.

Zhang Jiandong, Executive Vice President of Beijing 2022, urged organizers to make full use of the test events to improve the management and operation of venues and competitions.

"As the first test event, the FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup should set a benchmark for the following Olympic Games test events," Zhang said during a meeting of the test events' organizing committee on Thursday.

The 2020 FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup will be the first such event held in China. Zhang acknowledged that the organizers lacked experience, but said they would adopt a series of measures to ensure the tournament's success.

The World Cup will itself be preceded by China's National Alpine Skiing Downhill tournament. A weather forecasting system will also be constructed to provide minute-by-minute weather updates from several monitoring devices installed 100 meters apart at the venue.