OlymPicks: Canadian & Long-Time Beijinger Returns, This Time for His Second Beijing Olympics

In OlymPicks, we highlight news, gossip, and the results of Beijing's 2022 Winter Olympics.

Long-term Beijing resident Richard N. Liu is back in Beijing since moving back home to Canada in 2014 – this time to work for Team Canada in the 2022 Games.

He’s not only returning to the city he called home for more than 20 years, he’s also working at his second Beijing Olympics. He was a volunteer in the ’08 Games as well as Mission Staff for Team Canada at the Paralympics. Now that he’s back and working like crazy to prepare for the big event, we asked him a few questions about life inside the “closed loop.”

What’s your role this year at the Olympics? 
I’m part of the Administrative Personnel for the Mission Staff of Team Canada.

What parts of the Closed Loop are you in — do you stay in one specific zone or do you move from place to place? 
I'm with our Advanced Team, which arrived over a week ago in the 'Jing. We are located outside the Olympic Village, at a Performance Center, but we have the flexibility to move from venue to venue, and from competition zone to competition zone within the Closed Loop using dedicated transportation such as cars, buses, and the high-speed train up to Yanqing and Zhangjiakou.

As a long-term Beijinger, how does it feel to be back in the city? Do you get any of the old “Beijing flavor” inside the loop?
It's been great and amazing to see the blue skies during the Lunar New Year! We had jiaozi last night during the Lunar New Year’s Eve, which nearly brought me to tears. Oh how I missed thee! And I have yet to get a jianbing!

Speaking of food, What’s the food like within the loop? I’d imagine there’s got to be so many different tastes and dietary regimes to adhere to.
Since we are located outside the village at a Performance Center, we’re housed in a hotel, so the breakfast buffets are awesome … there goes my diet! I hope to find some time to visit and experience the food and services closer to the games though, as I saw some robots taking over the work of cooking.

What’s the most impressive change you’ve noticed about Beijing?
I'll let you know when I get out of the office! We have been working non-stop during pre-games to ensure everything is up and running for our athletes who have already started to arrive.

I’d imagine you’ve got a packed schedule — what’s a typical day like? Will you get any breaks / time off to watch any of the games as a spectator?
I usually get up early in the morning before the sun rises, get my coffee and breakfast, and then head up to the office and work until 9pm … or longer if things get busy. We have an amazing team of Canadians from coast to coast back home as well as here on the ground, and we keep each other energized and entertained. I took half a day off on Lunar New Year morning to speak with family and friends and will probably do the same for the Lantern Festival. When things quiet down, I do hope to visit the Olympic Village and see a couple of venues if I'm lucky.

Organizers are taking some impressive precautionary measures to make sure there isn’t a Covid outbreak. How does that play out for you in terms of your day-to-day schedule?
I had to start doing the Closed Loop bubble prep a couple of weeks before departure in my hometown of Burnaby, just outside of Vancouver, by taking three PCR tests and getting a third booster (I threw in a couple of additional vaccines like the flu shot as well), I’ve avoided large crowds since Christmas and had daily temperature checks. Also prayed a lot as there was a chance we couldn't get on the plane if we got Covid or if the health declaration wasn't confirmed. However, I thankfully got the green light before departing.

And how about after touching down in Beijing?
We arrived at a very quiet Beijing Capital Airport and were ushered efficiently through the process, probably the fastest I have ever left T3! Got on the highway and to our Performance Center in no time flat. It’s very good to be back in my second hometown, but the part I am missing tremendously is being able to wander outside to hang out with my friends here in Beijing and grab a cold one. Well, at least it's not 1918 and we have WeChat!

What events would you recommend the average sports fan tune into during the games?
Watch everything if you can as it's all amazing, but I am hoping to catch Jamaica's bobsled team as they have a cool Canadian story beginning that was captured by the 1993 movie Cool Runnings. I’m also looking forward to the Women's monobob, which will be a new discipline for Beijing 2022 to watch out for.

READ: OlymPicks: Q&A With Beijinger & China Ice Hockey Team Member Simon Chen

Images courtesy of Richard Liu