Beijing Becomes the First City to Host Summer and Winter Olympics

On 4 February 2022, the XXIV Olympic Winter Games opened in the Chinese capital, making Beijing the first city to stage both the Summer and Winter iterations of the event. Beijing had secured hosting rights during the 128th International Olympic Committee session in Kuala Lumpur on 31 July 2015, prevailing over Almaty by a narrow margin of four votes. The appointment followed the withdrawal of multiple European candidate cities, including Oslo, amid mounting resistance to hosting costs and the organizational conditions required by Olympic officials. This decision capped a consecutive trio of East Asian Olympic events, beginning with the 2018 Winter Games in Pyeongchang and the pandemic-delayed 2020 Summer Games in Tokyo.

The staging of the 2022 Winter Games relied heavily on sites constructed for the 2008 Summer Games. Reused structures included the Beijing National Aquatics Centre, which adapted its swimming facility to support curling sheets, and the iconic National Stadium, widely known as the Bird's Nest, where the opening and closing ceremonies took place without holding athletic competitions. To accommodate snow and sliding events, organizers expanded beyond the capital into Yanqing District and Zhangjiakou, located in neighbouring Hebei province. Because natural snowfall was rare in these mountain zones, venues relied extensively on artificial snow, with an estimated forty-nine million gallons of water projected for snowmaking operations.