The Czech Republic has registered for the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. Jiří Kejval, Chair of the Czech Olympic Committee (WWTP), signed the application, and President Miloš Zeman the cover letter to the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Thomas Bach. The start of the Winter Games in China is scheduled for February 4th, 2022. Photo Credit: Freepik.
Czech Rep., May 14 (BD) – Beijing is set to become the first city in the world to have hosted both the summer and winter editions of the Olympic Games, after winning the bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics in July 2015.
“Because of this we know roughly what we can expect, although it will be more difficult for athletes because of the difficulty of travelling during the Olympic games”, said WWTP Chair Jiří Kejval at a press conference with reporters.
On Wednesday, Kejval signed the application for the Olympic Games, which he said will have a symbolic value due to the pandemic, as they will in Tokyo this summer.
“We perceive them as a light at the end of the tunnel, the moment when the world returns to normal. We see in this overlap that it will not be just a sports struggle,” he said.
President Miloš Zeman, when signing the cover letter to IOC President Thomas Bach, said he will not attend the games in Beijing, recalling an incident before the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, when Bach promised Zeman to allow three-time Olympic speed skating champion, Martina Sáblíková, to participate as a wild-card following a dispute over the qualifying criteria for the cycling time trial. In the end Sáblíková did not compete, leading the Czech Olympic Committee and the Czech Cycling Association to file a lawsuit over the rules. “I’m not sure if it’s in the spirit of Olympianism not to keep your promises,” said Zeman, adding that he wished the Czech athletes full success and well-being in the games.
At the last Winter Olympics, which took place in 2018 in Pyongyang, 95 Czech athletes competed, winning seven medals. Ester Ledecká, a Czech snowboarder and alpine skier who won the gold medal in the alpine skiing supergiant and the parallel giant slalom of snowboarding in 2018, became the first woman in the history of the Winter Olympics to take titles in two different disciplines in the same Olympics.
