László Vajda, a senior expert who has worked for the Beijing 2022 Organising Committee for the last four years, told insidethegames that the measures eventually employed for Tokyo would be hugely significant for the staging of the next Winter Games.

"We are following very closely what is happening in Japan with the Tokyo 2020 Games," he said.

"We are watching all the plans and trials they have done recently with sports events.

"I wouldn’t contemplate today what measures we might or might not introduce because we will have to see how Tokyo unfolds - what works there, what may work, what may not work, what kind of approach not just Tokyo 2020 but the IOC will be taking in terms of spectator attendance and athletes’ length of stay.

"Within Beijing 2022 we are following our timeline, and obviously there is very meticulous planning going on at the same time for various scenarios."

The coronavirus pandemic may have had its roots in China more than a year ago but the country appears to be nearly back to normal now.

It is claimed there has been a total of 89,430 COVID-19 cases in China, with a relatively low death total of 4,636. 

Preparations for Beijing 2022 appear to have hardly slowed during the global crisis. 

"In general, we as an Organising Committee are going ahead full speed, on schedule," Vajda told insidethegames.

"I don’t see anywhere any aspect of our planning or delivery that might create any question or any doubt.

"But obviously nobody knows today how the next few months will unfold.

"We know that vaccination is happening, it’s accelerating globally, and that’s another very important factor, to see how that actually impacts the virus in the next few months.

"We have huge human resources and we are very confident of our capacity.

"So we are all going ahead, and there is a degree of optimism that Tokyo will happen and we will happen as scheduled."

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