Beijing Olympic torch to be carried for only three days

The Olympic torch for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, which would normally travel across China, will be carried only limitedly due to COVID-19.

The Olympic torch that arrived in Beijing on Oct. 20 last year is burning in the Beijing Olympic Tower as of Tuesday. Twelve hundred carriers will run from the center of Beijing to Yanqing District and Zhangjiakou in Hebei province, which are located in the outskirts of the capital city, for three days from February 2. The round trip distance is only around 300 kilometers. For the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, 21,880 runners carried the torch for 137,000 kilometers across 19 cities in five continents around the world.

It is also a lot less than the recent Olympics. For the Tokyo summer Olympics, the torch had been carried for 2,000 kilometers across Japan by 10,000 runners for 121 days starting from March 25, 2021 in Fukushima. For the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics, 7,500 carriers ran 2,018 kilometers in 17 cities and provinces, as well as all around Gangwon Province, for 101 days from Nov. 1, 2017.


leper@donga.com