<Anchor>



The Beijing Winter Olympics, a global winter sports festival, opens today (the 4th).

Due to the Corona 19, the Olympic fever is not the same this time as in Tokyo last year, but athletes from 91 countries participate in the 17-day heated race.



Ha Seong-ryong is a reporter from Beijing.



<Reporter>



The Beijing Olympics, which will be held six months after the Tokyo Olympics, are kicking off with the opening ceremony tonight.



Beijing, which hosts both the Winter and Summer Olympics in one city for the first time ever, marks the start of the winter festival at the exact location where the opening ceremony was held in the summer of 2008.



Compared to the splendid and grand opening ceremony that took place over 4 hours with over 15,000 people participating 14 years ago, the time and scale of the opening ceremony has been greatly reduced.



About 3,000 people participate and it will be held for 100 minutes under the theme of 'One World, One Family'.



Our team will be the 73rd out of 91 countries, with short track skaters Kwak Yoon-gi and Kim A-rang as jockeys.



After a brief three-day relay due to the COVID-19 quarantine, the torch will return to Beijing today and head to the opening ceremony after passing through Yanqing and Zhangjiakou, where matches are held, and the Great Wall, the 7th Wonder of the World.



[Xi Jinping/President of China: China will dedicate a simple, safe and exciting Olympics to the world.]



Unlike Tokyo, which was the first Olympics in history, limited spectator admission is allowed at the Beijing Stadium.



Women's ice hockey started a day before the opening, and the IOC changed its policy of no spectators and allowed up to 50% of spectators to enter the stadium, and about 400 Chinese spectators are enjoying 'intuition'.



However, since the 23rd of last month, nearly 300 of the Olympic officials who have been to China have tested positive for the coronavirus, so anxiety is still there.



There are more than 100 confirmed cases in the squad, but fortunately, there were no confirmed cases in the Korean team.