The Chinese have a sense of timing. Exactly one month before the opening of the Beijing 2022 Winter Games, the organizers of the Olympic and Paralympic event announced on Tuesday January 4 that they had put into service the already famous “health bubble” around the official sites.
It promises to be the most hermetic in history, a notch above that of the Tokyo 2020 Games. It will envelop the clusters of Beijing, Zhangjiakou and Yanqing until the end of the Paralympic Games, scheduled for March 13.
Detailed in the two versions of the “playbooks” published by the organizing committee, the conditions for travel and stay within the bubble are now effective. Everything but a coincidence: the bubble of the Games coincides with the arrival of the first accredited foreigners. Essentially, they belong to the “ support staff » recruited by the Chinese to lend a hand to locals on official sites.
Chinese television channel CCTV system reports that two Japanese arrived on Tuesday February 4 at Beijing International Airport, the only access point authorized by the Chinese to participate in the Winter Games. They had boarded in Tokyo, from one of the eleven foreign airports recognized by China as a departure point for temporary flights intended for the Olympic family.
The two travelers were taken care of separately by employees of the organizing committee, covered from head to toe in protective suits. They were accompanied to the Olympic village. But CCTV clarified in his report: the two Japanese joined the village “ without waiting for the results of anti-COVID-19 tests » made upon their arrival at the Beijing airport terminal. Surprising.
Once in the bubble, the stay of accredited participants (athletes, coaches, officials, media, volunteers, employees, etc.) promises to be devoid of the slightest improvisation. All will be subject to daily testing. Travel will only be authorized within the health bubble, with no possibility of leaving it. They will have to take special cars on Chinese-built high-speed trains to travel from Beijing to the snow test areas.
According to the Chinese press, certain employees of the organizing committee and local service providers for the Games, including cooks from the athletes' village, will enter the bubble in the coming days, but will not leave before the end of the Paralympic Games. They will have to undergo a quarantine period before returning home.
The Main Media Center (MPC) and the International Broadcast Center (IBC) were also officially opened on Tuesday (4 January). The first journalists and technicians are expected next week.
There remains one question, still unanswered: the public. The Chinese organizers have not yet changed their position: only local spectators will be allowed to attend the events. But the gauge planned for the competition sites has not yet been announced. And the sale of tickets has not started.
Less than 30 days before the opening, the closed-door scenario is not officially on the table. Not yet. But organizers clarified that spectators would not enter the bubble. L'AFP reports that barriers “ on Tuesday, January 4, kept passers-by at a good distance from the installations planned for the Games, such as the “Bird’s Nest”, where the opening ceremony will take place.«
