Beijing 2022: The International Launch for the Digi-Yuan

The Winter Olympics will introduce global visitors to the state’s e-currency

The Winter Olympics begin this week, with Beijing becoming the first city to host both the summer and winter games.

I took a look at the gender split in past Winter Olympics and there is a clear trend over the years:

(Click on this image to see a hi-res version.)

Only 11 women competed back in 1924 at the Chamonix games, one of whom was an 11 year-old girl, Sonja Henie. She finished last.

But she also laughed last, coming back in 1928 to take gold at the age of 15. (There is a fantastic set of photos from the inaugural winter games here.)

Check out how teams arrived at the starting point of the bobsligh back then:

It’s all a little more corporate these days.

Nonetheless, I’m sure the Olympics people don’t mind me using their official images in this post. They seem pretty cool about things like that, the International Olympic Committee.

I watched a bit of the men’s moguls yesterday morning and couldn’t help but think of this scene:

You can guess what comes next. Painful.

The Beijing Games

In Beijing, they are using 49 million gallons of chemically-treated water frozen through snow machines, in place of what romantics know as “snow”.

This creates a surface that some athletes think will be dangerous, but the stark reality is they’d better get used to it.

A recent study from Loughborough University predicted that if we keep emitting like we’re emittin’ today, by 2050 just 11 of the 21 cities that have hosted winter games in the past will have enough snow to repeat the feat.