2022 Winter Olympics aspiration marks Beijing's New Year countdown

Winter Olympics champions, skating and skiing world champions highlighted the Beijing's New Year countdown event held here Wednesday in the Olympic Green.

Among them include Yang Yang, the Salt Lake Winter Olympics skating champion and now a member of IOC, Zhou Yang, double Olympic champion of Vancouver Games, Shen Xue/Zhao Hongbo, figure skating pairs champions of Vanvouver Games.

At the same time another two venues involved to Beijing's bidding of Winter Olympics also staged New Year countdown ceremonies. The countdown kicked off at 20:00 local time at three different venues, but the same theme "Snowy Beijing Welcomes Olympics". The three venues are located in Olympic Green, Guangchang near to Badaling Great Wall, and Chongli of Zhangjiakou respectively.

The event was held to bring enthusiastic citizens together to demonstrate their cravings for 2022 Olympic Winter Games and Winter Paralympic Games, to highlight the fascination of Beijing in winter, and voice aspirations of billions of Chinese people to realize the Olympics pursuit.

At the main venue of Bird's Nest in the Olympic Green, young ice hockey players were synonymous with Beijingers who are enthusiastic about winter sports, while the ice skating performance in Yanqing and snow sports programs in Chongli reinterpreted passion of citizens for winter sports and their best wishes for the success of Beijing's bid for 2022 Olympic Winter Games and Winter Paralympic Games.

Citizens from all circles of life and of all ethnic groups, tourists from home and abroad, winners of Olympic Winter Games and national champions, aficionados of winter sports, university students and volunteers of Beijing gathered in the Bird's Nest to celebrate the coming new year, singing and dancing joyously, and creating a pleasant and festival atmosphere. They also prepared wish lamps and wrote down their New Year's resolutions on the "Scroll of Wishes".