Photo: VCG

 
Winners at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games will have another permanent reminder of their success apart from their medals, as uniquely, the flower bouquets  are made of wool, each one carefully hand-crafted. 

According to the Beijing 2022 organizing committee, wool bouquets are low-carbon which reflects the concept of a "green Olympics."

The Olympic bouquet consists of seven different wool flowers including roses, lilies, osmanthus and green olives, each with a special meaning representing fraternity, tenacity, happiness, unity, victory and peace. 

In the Paralympic Winter Games, a blue cosmos will be added to the bouquet to symbolize strength.

The word "BEIJING 2022" is printed on the ribbon of the bouquet handle, which is in line with the main color of the ­Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games and highlights the distinctive features of ice and snow sports.

The award bouquet is an important element that reflects the culture of the host country at each Olympic Games. At the awards ceremony, medalists hold the bouquet aloft, put on the medal, and leave a precious photo.

Media reported that 1,251 knitted bouquets are needed for the Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympics, and since each flower is ­hand-knitted, it requires a lot of time and hard work. 

The flowers were knitted over a period of three months by retirees in Shanghai, members of a knitting club who usually knit and sew garments for charity. The knitters used 50 different types of stitches. 

"It takes 20 minutes to weave a rose petal. A rose consists of 10 petals, three leaves and one stem. It takes one person at least five hours to knit one rose, so for a whole bouquet it takes 35 hours. All the bouquets will take nearly 50,000 hours to complete," Li Meili, the designer and an inheritor of a traditional Shanghai knitting technique, told the Xinhua News Agency in an interview.