Dry Slope Centres Keeping Snowsports Popular in China After Beijing Olympics

China’s official media sources are reporting that interest in ice and snow sports remain strong a year after the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, with dry ski slope facilities, ski simulators and indoor snow centres playing a big part, especially with large parts of the country with the highest population densities located in areas where natural snowfall rarely occurs.

"The Beijing Winter Olympics allowed every Chinese to know more about ice and snow sports. The legacy is just incredible. Regardless of where they live, more and more Chinese people are taking up winter sports," said skier Li Jiahua. “A year after the 2022 Winter Olympics, all Beijing 2022 venues are used for elite-level sport and public fitness. China is riding the wave of the Games' success to become a winter sports power,” a Chinese media report claims. Christophe Dubi, the IOC's Olympic Games Executive Director, is reported as saying that the most outstanding feature of the 2022 Games for him is the way they touched the lives of millions of local people by helping them discover the world of winter sports.

The number of ice and snow equipment manufacturing bases is also snowballing, as cities like Harbin and Jilin have rolled out policies to introduce a series of equipment manufacturers. Millions of younger generations are reported to have been inspired by ski prodigies like Gu Eileen and Su Yiming. "Their success at the Beijing 2022 Games has changed the perception of education, as more and more Chinese families are encouraging their children to take up winter sports at a very young age, instead of seeing the sport only as a form of entertainment," said Zhang Guihai, an expert at an ice and snow industry research institute in Heilongjiang. By the end of 2025, 5,000 schools across China are expected to include winter sports in their curriculum, according to a government plan.

*Release Courtesy: Snow Hunter's Dry Slope News