“I WILL never forget the friendly and hospitable atmosphere in Beijing,” Mirza Nikolajev, a 20-year-old luger from Bosnia and Herzegovina, told Xinhua upon his return home from the Olympic Winter Games in Beijing on Tuesday.

At the Olympic Village in Beijing “everybody was always so cheerful and smiling all the time. They did their best to make you feel at home,” Nikolajev said.

“I am happy to have had the opportunity to meet the bobsleigh teams from Brazil and the United States and the women’s monobob athletes from the Netherlands. As is customary at the Olympic Games, we all exchanged badges, and I’m proud to say that ours were highly sought after,” Mirza wrote in a post on the Bosnian Olympic Committee’s official website.

Nikolajev had the honor of carrying his country’s flag at the opening ceremony, and he won the hearts of lots of fans with his wink to the camera.

“When I left for Beijing I had some 900 followers on Instagram. Today, I have more than 29,000 and counting. It’s crazy and flattering at the same time,” he said.

Nikolajev did pick up a few words in Chinese during his stay in Beijing. In a video he posted on Instagram on Feb. 7, he thanked his fans for their love and support and said he loved his Olympic hosts in Chinese. The post received more than 12,000 likes and 7,700 comments in just two days.

Mirza said he still could not believe how a simple gesture such as winking could elicit such a huge reaction.

He admitted that he was very nervous during the opening ceremony, as it dawned on him there and then how big a deal it was to be part of his country’s Olympic team.

(Xinhua)