DURING the “Experience Beijing” ice sports testing program, foreign diplomats gave compliments on the preparation work of the Beijing Winter Olympics and looked forward to a winter Games as successful as Beijing 2008.

Wukesong Sports Center welcomed spectators to its ice hockey game for the first time Sunday. Several foreign diplomats attended and shared the excitement.

Tea Pirih, economic counselor at the Embassy of the Republic of Slovenia in Beijing, was impressed with the preparations.

“We see that the preparations are going well. We just hope that soon our technical crew and athletes will have the possibility to visit China and see it with their own eyes.”

Converting from a basketball arena and concert venue to an ice hockey rink, Wukesong Sports Center has now become a multiuse venue that William Freyr Huntingdon-Williams is “very pleased to see.”

“And that’s very good for the whole sustainability of the games and going forward,” said the first secretary and deputy head of mission at the Embassy of Iceland.

“Now the newest thing here of course is the new technology in ice making, which we’ve been told is much more environmentally friendly,” he added.

According to Adam Daniel Breuer Zehevi, cultural attache at the Embassy of Hungary, the event organization in China “is very professionally done.”

“Hopefully there will be one of the kind as we have seen back in 2008 during the Summer Olympic Games. Beijing has really done everything in its power to create very successful events,” said Zehevi. “And we are hoping to see the same thing now.”

He also commended the appeal of engaging 300 million people in winter sports in China.

(Xinhua)