Photo taken on Feb. 4, 2022 shows a cauldron holding the Olympic flame during the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games at the National Stadium in Beijing.(Photo: Xinhua)

 
The closing ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games, which is scheduled to be held on Sunday evening, will focus on athletes and expressing the idea of Beijing as the world's first dual Olympic city in an artistic way by showing off the elements from 2008 to 2022 with a combination of passion and romance. 

On Friday night, the directing team finished the last of the three rehearsals for the closing ceremony, which will last about 80 minutes. It will showcase a continuous narrative from the opening ceremony, which underscores Chinese beauty and romance. The closing ceremony will also be simple and romantic like the opening ceremony, in order to underscore Chinese people's feelings for holding dual Olympics, according to media reports. 

The ceremony would mainly use red that represents China and blue that represents ice and snow. Lanterns and the Chinese knots will be used, according to China Central Television (CCTV). 

We will put about 20,000 lanterns at on the spectator seats, closing ceremony director Sha Xiaolan told CCTV. 

Sha said that they will use red as the main color for the closing ceremony as they want to send a warm feeling to the world, representing Chinese traditional spirit of kindness and warmth.

The opening ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games impressed the global audience with highly romantic and characteristic Chinese traditional elements such as the 24 solar terms. 

The way the cauldron was lit -- 91 small pieces of snowflakes representing the 91 countries and regions in the Games formulate a bigger piece of a snowflake and the last two torch holders place their torch at the snowflake as the cauldron -- is not only creative but in accordance with the idea of greenness and getting together of the Games. 

Closing ceremony director Sha told media that the closing ceremony will follow the opening ceremony to also start from the story of a piece of snowflake. 

Children holding lanterns shaped in snowflakes would come onto the venue to light the emblem of the Beijing 2022 to start the grand reunion of the athletes, Sha said. 

At the closing ceremony, the small pieces of snowflakes of the cauldron would die out one by one and at last the torch die down, according to Sha. And after a short while, the image of the snowflake will reappear, symbolizing that the Olympic flame and the spirit will be passed on in the name of the ice and snow.

Zhang Yimou, chief director of the four ceremonies for the Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Games, told media that when the cauldron die down, there will be a flash back moment of the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympic Games to create a feeling of traveling through time and present the idea of dual Olympic city. 

There would also be a part at the closing ceremony to cherish the memory of people who contributed to the Olympics. Willow branches that represent unwilling to separate in Chinese culture and the spirit of tenacity would be used in the part, Sha revealed. 

A video to recall memorable moments of athletes during the Beijing 2022 would also be revealed at the closing ceremony, including those of Gu Ailing and Su Yiming from the Chinese team, Sha said. 

Zhang said that there will be no stars or professional performers at the closing ceremony, but they will rely on the support of people from various fields of the society, most of them are from universities, high and middle schools. 

A total of 3,000 people attended the preparation work of the closing ceremony and there will be nearly 1,000 performers, CCTV said. 

The closing ceremony will focus on athletes as it is a cheerful gathering for them after they fought in the competitions. 

The directing team for the ceremony is also influenced by the changes China has experienced since 2008. Sha also told Chinese media that now it's the moment to underscore the cultural confidence of Chinese artists. 

At the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics in 2008, we wanted to show a splendid 5000-year-old culture of China, but now it's time to show Chinese people's spirit and our technology innovation, such as the use of over 10,000 square meters of LED screen, which is unprecedented, Sha said.

Global Times