Juan Antonio Samaranch, chairman of the IOC Coordination Commission for Beijing 2022.

Just one day before the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games bring its grand curtain down, Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr., Chairman of the IOC Coordination Commission for Beijing 2022,on Saturdayheaped praise on the Games, saying the organizing committee has done an incredible work and the volunteers are extraordinary, and fully acknowledged the effectiveness of the closed-loop system. 

Beijing Winter Olympics Games is being held as a huge wave of the Omicron variant spreads around the world. Despite the tremendous operational difficulties, Samaranch hailed the closed-loop management system.

"The Games have happened flawlessly and, as I said from the day two, without the need of much coordination," he said. 

"The [closed-loop] system... worked 100 percent. All 171 positive cases within the screening system all can be traced to close contacts to positives at the airport. So there has been no transmission in the loop," he said.

Samaranch expressed his gratitude to all "for helping us deliver such a wonderful Olympic Games," and thanked the hosts from the organizing committee, saying that "it is an incredible work they have done for the Olympic movement, for themselves, and for China." 

"They have safely delivered the Games in the most difficult environment that could be there. Not only that, but [also] they have been responsive to all our requests. They had enormous patience and they were very humble with all our recommendations," Samaranch said.

"They have been efficient when facing the problems within hours." 

Photo:VCG

Apart from the organizing committee, he also highly praised the volunteers, saying they are an "extraordinary group of cultured people, dedicated, enthusiastic that they have gone beyond what you can require from people volunteering." 

"We have more than 600 million people approximately watching the opening ceremony, half of them in China, half of them coming from the rest of the world," he said. 

Zhang Jiandong, executive vice president of the Beijing 2022 Organising Committee, reported China's efforts to the Beijing 2022, including guarantee facilities, Games' services, COVID-19 countermeasures, communication & cultural activities, and international communications and cooperation. 

As for the closing ceremony, Zhang said the scale of spectators of the closing ceremony will be the same as theopening event, and there would be a 10-day transition period to the Paralympics Games. 

The closing ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics will be held on Sunday evening at 8 pm.

Global Times