Gu Ailing Eileen of Team China performs a trick ahead of the Women's Freestyle Skiing Freeski Big Air Final on Day 4 of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games at Big Air Shougang on February 8, 2022 in Beijing, China. Photo: VCG

Referring to the Big Air Shougang - the venue hosting freestyle skiing and big air events of snowboard at the Beijing Games - as a "nuclear power plant" sounds like a story in the Arabian Nights and extremely absurd, the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games said in response to foreign media reports.   

Zhao Weidong, spokesperson of the committee, said on Thursday that he also noticed warmhearted netizens from many countries and regions who have sufficiently popularized the true information of the venue on social media which he appreciates. 

According to Zhao, the gigantic ski-ramp in the Shougang Industrial Park is the first sports stadium regenerated from an industrial heritage site in the Winter Olympic history. 

"This is the world's first permanently preserved and used ski jump upgraded from industrial resources such as cooling towers of the Shougang Group." 

It was hard for people around the world not to notice the huge ski jump with a unique backdrop of smokestacks when Chinese freestyle skier Gu Ailing Eileen pulled off a 1620 performance she had never tried before to win the Women's Freeski Big Air gold, becoming the first female Chinese athlete to be crowned in a snow sport at a Winter Olympics. 

Her most astonishing moment flying in the air was captured by photojournalists from across the world, with the industrial facilities in the background. 

While a throng of athletes, journalists and netizens regarded the ski jump venue as "cool," some foreign media and internet influencers indulged in their wildest fantasy, defaming the venue as a "dystopian nuclear plant." 

Some people, such as Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape Communications Corporation, exposed his ignorance by saying the structures are nuclear reactors next to the ski slopes, but many netizens left messages to mock him and disseminated information about the cooling towers of the former steel mill, praising the idea of turning an industrial zone into an Olympic venue.

Zhao said the office of the Beijing Organizing Committee is also located in the industrial park and close to the gigantic ski-ramp. International Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach set the industrial park as a model by the Beijing committee to practice sustainable development and frugality in hosting the Olympics, hailing it as an amazing example of urban planning and urban development, Zhao said. 

Zhao also said some Western media covered the story about the culture and sports entertainment complex converted from an industrial park and gave full recognition to the practice. 

The venue was constructed at the site of a 100-year-old former steelworks of Shougang Group, which was shut down before the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics since it was a source of air pollution. 

The venue has turned into a complex of office buildings, cafes and sports facilities. When the Winter Olympics ends, it will be turned into a sports-themed park and open to the public. It will also host big air events and serve as a training area for professional athletes and sports teams. 

Global Times