Is that a nuclear power plant? The story behind those towers at the Winter Olympics big air

But the Big Air Shougang Olympic venue in Beijing is attracting attention for its much edgier, urban setting.

Behind the skiers launching themselves from the 60-meter (196-foot) slope are furnaces, tall chimneys and cooling towers on the site of a former steel mill that contributed to the Chinese capital’s notoriously polluted air for decades.

Established in 1919, the mill ceased operation more than 15 years ago, as part of efforts to clean the air in the capital ahead of the 2008 Summer Olympics.

That left a large tract of land in the city center ripe for rehabilitation and regeneration, says engineering and design firm ARUP, which transformed the site into a bustling center for tourism and art exhibitions. In 2013, it even hosted an electronic music festival.

The rusty, outdated remains of the mill were never demolished — not even for the big sky jump at the 2022 Winter Olympics.

Instead, the old mill has been incorporated into Big Air Shougang’s design. One of the cooling towers even bears the Games logo.

The jump has caught the attention of social media users, in part because of the mounds of fake snow generated to host the event, but also because of the intrigue over what these towers are and why they are still standing right behind the jump.

Some Twitter users wondered if it might have been a nuclear power plant.

“The Big Air stadium at the Olympics appears to be right next to the Springfield nuclear power plant,” says a user named @jlove1982 wrote.

Another, @LindsayMplswrote, “It feels pretty dystopian to have some sort of nuclear facility as the backdrop to this Big Air ski event.”

The Shougang Big Air is the world’s first permanent long-term big air location. It sits on the shore of Qunming Lake, on the west side of the cooling towers at 88 meters (288 feet) above sea level, according to architecture firm TeamMinus, which designed the jump.

TeamMinus outlined the inspiration behind the design on its website, citing the influence of Chinese flying apsaras, celestial beings found in both Buddhist and Hindu cultures.

Britain's Katie Summerhayes will participate on Monday.

New Zealand's Finn Bilous will compete in the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics in the Big Air Shougang.

The Beijing government calls the site a “Green and Eco Demonstration Area,” according to ARUP, which can be scaled up in other parts of the country.

While the regeneration project is a good example of reusing aging infrastructure, closing the plant wasn’t necessarily a “green” decision, as operations — and the greenhouse gas emissions associated with steel production — were effectively relocated to another location. part of the country.

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According to ARUP, in 2005 the entire production site, owned and operated by the state steel company Shougang Group, was moved to Caofeidian, in neighboring Hebei province.

The decision to relocate the plant was part of the Beijing government’s economic restructuring and pollution control initiatives.

China is the world’s largest emitter of the greenhouse gases fueling the climate crisis, producing more than a quarter of annual global emissions.

The Big Air is not the first element of the Beijing Games to raise questions about the environmental friendliness of the Games. The artificial snow generated for the Games is made using large amounts of water and electricity.

A recent DailyExpertNews report also showed how the Yanqing site was built in the former core area of the Songshan National Nature Reserve, a park established in 1985 to protect its dense forests, alpine meadows and rich biodiversity.

Beijing’s organizing committee did not respond to DailyExpertNews’s request for comment about whether it knew the ski center was being built in the former core area of the nature reserve. But in a response to DailyExpertNews, the IOC said the development of the Yanqing zone “turns the region — a rural suburb of Beijing — into a major four-season tourist destination, improving lives and boosting the local economy.”

This story has been updated to reflect the events in Shougang.

Journalist Lianne Kolirin reported from London, and Nectar Gan and Tom Booth reported from Beijing.