One year after the opening of the Beijing 2022: Unique and unforgettable

Editor's Note: Hailed as extraordinary and excellent by the International Olympic Committee, Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics left indelible memories for all Chinese people and the global sports community. A year after the opening of the Games, some shining moments still feel inspiring and heartwarming as if just happened yesterday.

1. A host of talent

Despite being a relative newcomer to winter sports, China, as the host nation of Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, impressed the world by bagging its best ever haul of 15 medals, including nine golds, to finish third in the overall standings — the highest since the country's Winter Games debut in 1980 at Lake Placid, New York.

Sensational freestyle skiing champion Gu Ailing and snowboarding gold medalist Su Yiming were among a group of young Chinese winter sports stars who made global headlines and became fan favorites at Beijing 2022. Their stunning skills on ice and snow, as well as the passion and energy that the young generation of Chinese winter sports aces showed at the Olympics, encouraged more people to embrace ice and snow sports.

2. A real crowd pleaser

The popularity of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics is evidenced by the huge global broadcast audience. According to independent research conducted on behalf of the IOC, the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games reached 2.01 billion people worldwide, which made it the most digitally engaged Olympic Winter Games in history. Viewers watched a total of 713 billion minutes of the Games coverage through the channels of Olympic media rights partners, and Olympic social media also achieved 3.2 billion engagements and attracted more than 11 million new followers across various platforms. According to the data, about 57 percent of teenagers will watch more Olympic Games coverage in the coming years.

3. A fairer gender balance

With women accounting for 45 percent of the athletes, Beijing 2022 was the most gender-balanced Olympic Winter Games in history. It featured the highest ever number of women's events with 46 out of a total of 109. Meanwhile, the Beijing 2022 organizing committee itself was also a great example of gender balance. Among the 19 members of the organizing committee's athletes' commission, 14 were women, as were seven out of the 11 event managers. The organizing committee ensured that females accounted for 40 percent of its staff, and also a half of Games' volunteers were also female.

4. Green Games

With low-carbon venues, clean-energy transport, water-efficient artificial snow production and the reuse of key sites, the Beijing Winter Olympics proved "the greenest Games" ever. As an example, clean energy vehicles accounted for 84.9 percent of the total vehicles used during the Games, which included more than 1,000 hydrogen-fueled cars. Among the 13 venues at the Games' Beijing competition zone, 11 were reused from the 2008 Summer Olympics in a bid to cut emissions, reduce environmental impact, and minimize the consumption of water, energy and materials. All competition venues were, and continue to be, powered 100 percent by green electricity generated from renewable sources.