2022 Beijing Winter Olympics to only allow "selected" spectators

China announced that the hosts will not sell tickets to the public for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. This decision has been taken owing to the prevailing COVID 19 situation across the globe.

Only "selected" spectators will be permitted to the 2022 Winter Games. Earlier, Beijing had already announced that tickets will not be sold to spectators from outside China’s mainland.

Keeping in mind the requirements of COVID-19 countermeasures, the tickets will be sold exclusively to spectators residing in China.

The announcement follows the release of pandemic prevention and control policy principles for the 2022 Olympics as well as the Paralympic Winter Games in Beijing.

The Olympic Winter Games will take place between February 4-20, 2022, and the Paralympic Winter Games will be held from March 4-13, 2022.

Beijing Olympic organizing committee to ensure strict COVID 19 control measures:

The athletes and officials have already started to land in Beijing with less than a month left for the Winter Games. They are immediately stepping into a tightly controlled COVID 19 bio-bubble separating them from the rest of the population.

Given the current situation of the COVID-19 pandemic, Beijing Olympic organizing committee has decided to assure the safety of all athletes, officials, staff and spectators.

The Beijing Olympic organizing committee said in a statement:

"In order to protect the health and safety of Olympic-related personnel and spectators, it was decided to adjust the original plan to sell tickets to the public and (instead) organize spectators to watch the games on-site."

The committee added:

"Given the difficult and complicated work of controlling the epidemic, and to protect the health and safety of those involved with the Games, the original plan of offering tickets to the general public has been altered toward spectators from selected groups."