Stuffed on every offered surface area in Zhang Wenquan’s congested Beijing residence is Olympic souvenirs.
From mascots and also lanterns to flags, banners, clothing and also snuggly playthings, this serious enthusiast has everything.
The Chinese superfan combs the net everyday for unusual mementos and also breaks selfies a number of times a week by the countdown clock to the 2022 Wintertimes Gamings in the resources.
Beijing will certainly end up being the initial city to have actually organized both the Summertime and also Winter Season Olympics when the last occasion starts in February— a desire happened for the building company employee.
‘ I saw China win lots of gold medals and also really felt influenced’
Zhang’s rate of interest initially started when he came to be glued to the 2000 Sydney Olympics as a high-school trainee.
” I saw China win lots of gold medals and also really felt passionate,” the 35-year-old states.
When the Gamings involved Beijing in 2008, he functioned as a main volunteer, a life-altering experience that triggered his interest for accumulating mementos.
Using a 2022 Wintertime Olympics headscarf and also sweatshirt jazzed up with its mascot– plus a headband analysis “Begin, Winter Season Olympics!”– Zhang flaunts the range of goods covering his residence.
Your house is so filled with heaps of boxes that he has actually been compelled to rest somewhere else.
He approximates investing a minimum of 400,000 yuan (EUR55,000) on 5,000 mementos up until now.
Zhang combs ebay.com daily for brand-new listings, with one of the most pricey discover being a EUR1,680 lantern from the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Season Olympics.
His collection is currently being shown in regional colleges and also colleges in the run-up to the Gamings.
Zhang’s individual engagement in the Olympic Gamings goes back to 2008
In 2008, Zhang aided with racking up at Beijing’s Wukesong Baseball Arena – a picture from the moment reveals a scrawny, bespectacled boy in a sky-blue Olympic jacket happily holding a baseball bat up in a vacant sector.
In his chaotic residence, a mounted certification of engagement holds on the wall surface.
Regardless of avoiding dishes to view the video games and also experiencing disease, Zhang was intoxicated by the ambience in 2008 at once of amazing nationwide satisfaction.
China won 100 medals (48 gold) and also presented its expanding stamina as an international power.
Zhang was not effective in the affordable choice procedure to be a 2022 volunteer yet wishes to get tickets for the opening and also closing events– along with his favorite sporting activity, number skating.
In the meanwhile, regular brows through are made to the websites of his developmental experiences the last time the resources was charged with holding.
His face brighten when he states waiting outside the resources’s ‘Bird’s Nest’ arena throughout an outfit practice session for February’s Gamings, viewing beams beam of light right into the evening skies.
” The arena was illuminated amazingly, it was a number of hundred times much more lovely than the 2008 Beijing Olympics,” he stated.
What’s even more, he is currently making strategies to head to Paris for the globe’s following summer season video games
