China approves $9.2-billion Winter Olympics high-speed rail line

In Current Affairs, International Affairs
November 3, 2015

China, on November 2, has approved plans for a 58.41 billion yuan (5.97 billion pounds) high-speed rail project which will be used during the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. The 174 kilometre-long railway, which will connect Beijing with the northern city of Zhangjiakou in Hebei province, will be constructed over a four-and-a-half year period and will be able to ferry 60 million people annually.

Beijing beat Kazakhstan’s Almaty in July to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, making it the first city to be awarded both the summer and winter Games.

About Origin of Olympics:-

The Greeks that came to the Sanctuary of Zeus at Olympia shared the same religious beliefs and spoke the same language. The athletes were all male citizens of the city-states from every corner of the Greek world, coming from as far away as Iberia (Spain) in the west and the Black Sea (Turkey) in the east.
The ancient Olympic Games began in the year 776 BC, when Koroibos, a cook from the nearby city of Elis, won the stadion race, a foot race 600 feet long. The stadion track at Olympia is shown here. According to some literary traditions, this was the only athletic event of the games for the first 13 Olympic festivals or until 724 BC. From 776 BC, the Games were held in Olympia every four years for almost 12 centuries.
Contrary evidence, both literary and archaeological, suggests that the games may have existed at Olympia much earlier than this date, perhaps as early as the 10th or 9th century BC.
The idea of the Olympic torch or Olympic Flame was first inaugurated in the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam.
There was no torch relay in the ancient Olympic Games. There were known, however, torch relays in other ancient Greek athletic festivals including those held at Athens.
The modern Olympic torch relay was first instituted at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin.The Olympic Oath was introduced in 1920.