China celebrates anniversary of successful bid to 2022 Winter Olympic Games

Beijing and Zhangjiakou held a series of events Sunday to celebrate the first anniversary of successful bid to 2022 Winter Olympic Games.

In Beijing , over 5,000 people took part in a walking event Sunday morning. In Zhangjiakou, a 4-kilometer walking event was held at 17:57, the time IOC president Bach announced Beijing won the bid a year ago.

At an event held to celebrate the first anniversary of its successful bid for the 2022 Games, the organisers said they will seek designs for the emblems of those games from worldwide designers regardless of their nationality, gender, profession and age. The deadline for the designers to submit their applications is December 30, 2016.

The 2022 Olympic and Paralympic organising committee also unveiled its official website -- www.beijing2022.cn which started operation on Sunday.

In the past year, Beijing and Zhangjiakou made overall and specific plans for the 2022 Winter Olympics and launched the preparation work for basic infrastructure construction.

Zhangjiakou were picked to host the 2021 freestyle and snowboard worlds, one year before it will also host these events as part of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.

Statistics shows that more than 12.5 million Chinese took part in skiing in 2015 with an increase of 21.36 percent year on year.

(APD)