The museum, founded in the Chinese port city of Tianjin, was authorised by the Samaranch family and holds some 16,000 items from the Olympic collection assembled by the former IOC President who died in 2010.

"Samaranch would be happy to see Beijing as a dual Olympic city, so the two Torches of the two Olympics were lit here for him," museum founder and former IOC Executive Board member Ching-Kuo Wu said.

Wu had been a member of IOC Coordination Commissions for both Beijing 2008 and 2022 and also chaired the IOC’s Culture and Heritage Commission.

Founded in 2013, the Samaranch Memorial is one of many endowed by Wu and forms part of the Olympic Museums Network (OMN).

"The Winter Olympics was a grand sports event and a reflection of China's aspiration to build a community with a shared future for humanity," Wu declared.

"In the past few years, I have seen many newly built high-standard ski resorts in China.

"Winter sports have gained popularity, with more than 300 million Chinese people having participated since Beijing won the bid to host the 2022 Olympic Games."

A year ago, COVID-19 restrictions meant the museum was unable to receive visitors during the Games but offered online exhibits including a feature on the Olympic Torch Relay.

Current displays include floorball, a sport promoted by Chinese sports authorities in southern cities where ice and snow sports are not readily available.

Official Chinese state media reported that Samaranch was a keen supporter of the initiative to promote the sport.

"The memorial will continue to promote the culture of Winter Olympics and winter sports," Samaranch Memorial deputy director Zhang Xiuli said.

The 1984 Los Angeles Olympics was the first summer Games at which Samaranch was IOC President. 

They featured 215 competitors from mainland China in what was their first significant participation in the modern Olympics since the Communist Government assumed power.

Samaranch indicated that he was keen for China to host the Olympics one day.

His visit to Beijing’s Asian Games in 1990, held only a year after the massacre of protesting students in Tiananmen Square was widely interpreted as signalling IOC approval for an Olympic bid.

Samaranch encouraged Beijing to try again after their bid for the 2000 Games proved unsuccessful.

Then at the 2001 IOC Session in Moscow, it fell to him to announce that the city had been chosen for the 2008 Olympics.

It was one of his final acts as IOC President.

Samaranch, by now Honorary IOC President was a welcome guest in 2008 where a bust of him was unveiled in Dongsi Park close to the Forbidden City, as part of an Olympic monument which also featured fellow IOC Presidents Baron Pierre de Coubertin and Jacques Rogge.

Juan Antonio Samaranch Jnr led the Coordination Commission for Beijing 2022.