Be a Civilized Student to Welcome the Winter Olympics

In order to hold a simple, safe and yet splendid Winter Games, the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games     1     (be) not lengthy or marked with a large-scale (大规模的) performance. The Olympic cauldron (主火炬) at the snowflake-themed ceremony was small,    2     the flames conveyed significant messages of greener Olympic Games.

The use of     3     (advance) technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine vision, 5G and cloud broadcasting added to the novelty of the opening ceremony. The performances,    4     carried forward the theme of global peace and shared future for humankind, focused on environmental     5     (protect), human health and physical fitness.

To reduce the carbon footprint of the Winter Games, all the Olympic venues were run on clean energy. For example, about 70 percent of the materials     6     (use) in the Games were obtained through renting, including new sporting equipment, furniture in the Olympic village, technical devices. Also, the medal platforms     7     (make) of recyclable and environmentally friendly materials.

More     8     (important), thrift (节约), a traditional Chinese virtue, can hep build a healthy social environment for China to realize     9     (it) targets of peaking carbon emissions before 2030 and carbon neutrality before 2060. All this made the 2022 Winter Games an important Olympics to focus     10     achieving carbon neutrality.

5 . In January, 2021, the ice-making work on the ”Ice Ribbon“, a landmark venue for the Beijing Winter Olympics, was completed.

In the Winter Olympics, where races can be won or lost by a small time gap, tiny imperfections in the ice can make all the differences. ”It’s not just a hunk of ice like you’d normally think of, like ice cubes sitting in your freezer,“ told Kenneth Golden, a U. S. mathematician who studies the structures of ice. ”It’s a much more fascinating and complex substance than people would normally think.“

The first step for building any ice rink is to purify the water to remove dissolved solids like salts and minerals. Such impurities don’t fit in the regular hexagonal(六边形的)structure of ice that forms as water freezes. The purer the water, the more consistent the ice surface.

In addition to the need for excellence in the raw materials of ice-making, technology is also very important, As one of the most advanced technologies for winter sports venues, a carbon dioxide cooling technology has been applied on a large scale for the Beijing Winter Olympic Games. CO₂ , is not new when it comes to ice-making. However, it has been gradually replaced by the man-made refrigerant, like Freon.

With increasing attention toward climate change, the old refrigerant has come into use again. As an element of the atmosphere, CO₂, doesn’t damage the ozone layer. Although CO₂ is a greenhouse gas, its greenhouse effect is much lower than that of other synthetic refrigerants. The Winter Olympics venues adopted CO₂ instead of Freon as a refrigerant in ice-making, which will reduce carbon dioxide emissions greatly.

”We believe these technological innovations will bring Beijing 2022 to spectators all over the world in a more impressive way.“ told Gao Bo from the Media Operations Department of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games.

6 . Team China’s teenage freeski superstar Gu Ailing had halfpipe gold wrapped up by her second run at Genting Snow Park in Zhangjiakou. “I’ve never taken a victory lap before in my entire life, but this time I felt like I finally deserve it,” Gu told reporters after becoming the first athlete to win Olympic medals in all three freeski events. Her big victory at the 2021 X Games in Aspen, Colorado, where she won Big Air, halfpipe and slopestyle golds, increased the expectation level for her Olympic performance in Beijing.

Born in California to a Chinese mother, Gu began competing for China when she was 15 in 2019, stating her aim to inspire millions of young people during the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing and promote the sport she loves. Since then, the outstanding part-time model and grade-A student has been busy gaining records, titles and firsts. All the while her superstar status has snowballed, as evidenced by her millions of followers on social media.

The 18-year-old also clearly feels she has achieved much away from the sporting arena at Beijing 2022 and she has become the inspiration for many. “After reading hundreds of messages that I get every day from young girls saying that they go sking because of me and they want to keep going or they, you know, broke their boundaries in some other way and felt inspired by something that I said, I feel all those little things are immensely rewarding.”

When asked about her future plan, she had no idea whether she would continue to compete in freestyle skiing. “I’m going to do whatever feels right, and hopefully I’ll be able to create some kind of positive change out of any position that I’m in,” said Gu.

8 . Elsa Desmond knows she is not going to win a medal at the Beijing Winter Olympics. But she is ________ as the first women’s luge (无舵雪橇) Olympian from Ireland. She was the 26th to ________ the line in the first run of the women’s race on Monday night, ________ than any of the other athletes, which did not ________ her. She celebrated with a large smile on her face.

Although she did not win in Beijing, she has already won some ________. She had been given many reasons why she could not compete: she is too short, she did not start ________ at a young age, and she could not balance a(n) ________ job with competing in a sport. The biggest difficulty simply might have been that Ireland did not have a luge organization. So, she ________ one herself; she had to ________.

And now, ________, she is a luge Olympian. “I’m a doctor in general surgery, I have all these really visible challenges, but I think everyone has worked as ________ as they can to be here.” She has delayed parts of her job to compete in the Olympics, but her ________ gave her the time off. And her co-workers are becoming big luge fans, extremely proud of her.

Desmond has ________ two demanding jobs: sliding a few months out of the year and living a life in medicine. There was a(n) ________ last season when she had to take important medical examinations in hotels in Germany where other sliders were staying. “I had to ________ signs on my door saying ‘Do not disturb, exam in ________’ in about six different languages.”

Desmond got the ________ of representing her country in Beijing, and being one of two people ________ Ireland’s flag during the opening ceremony on Friday. “I don’t think I can ________ words how excited I was to lead out the team. I really hope that I can make my country ________.”

The 2022 Winter Paralympics mascot (冬残奥会吉祥物) Shuey Rhon Rhon has won global recognition since it made its first public     1    (appear). Created by a group of artists from Jilin University of Arts in northeast China’s Jilin Province,     2     lovely mascot went through a designing process of 32 versions in more than 300 days.

Shuey Rhon Rhon features the shape of a traditional Chinese lantern, and symbolizes the spirit of hospitality (热情好客) and peace, as the first “Rhon” in Chinese means“to include”, and the second means “to melt, to warm”. In ancient times, lanterns     3    (use) for lighting in China.

The joyful-looking mascot sends a     4    (hope) message to the world and symbolizes the fighting spirit of the disabled athletes     5     casts light on humanity. Shuey, meaning snow, suggests promising harvest seasons, while the Ruyi pattern on top     6    (carry) the meaning of happiness.

“One major task was to bring the unique lantern to life, as most Olympic and Paralympic mascots were based     7     animal figures, not objects. “Guo said.” It was the     8    (difficult) and most confusing task in the designing process. ”

The artists decided     9    (decorate) it with paper cutting of pigeons (鸽子) after experimenting with other animal figures, and then realized that the shapes of two pigeon tails could outline a famous landmark of Beijing, the Temple of Heaven, thus     10     (add) more cultural and historical characteristics to the design.