By Sportswriter He Leijing
BEIJING, March 10 (Xinhua) -- After hot-footing it for the slopes and hopping off the lifts, Li Shengda clutches his poles closely among a crowd of skiers, and a few seconds later, he eagerly mutters to himself: "Ready, set, ski!"
Li, who is from south China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region where snow days are a rarity, chose to relish his entire ten-day holiday at the Taiziling Ski Resort in southwest China's Sichuan Province.
"I love the high altitude and the soft snow here. The feeling of skiing is so great, just like riding a motorcycle," the 27-year-old said. "I am totally enchanted by skiing."
According to Chen Wei, marketing manager of the ski resort, there were few professional ski clubs in Sichuan back in 2013 when he first went into the business, but now five clubs have been established at the resort with over 3,000 members.
"People in the south have a fascination with snow, and everyone knows the 2022 Winter Olympics is approaching," Chen said.
FEVER PITCH
Winter sports were once deemed a foreign and unaffordable pastime in China, but now, skiers like Li, who can carve gracefully when taking green runs, are not uncommon on the country's slopes.
The latecomer to the world of winter sports is seeing its people pick up skis and snowboards in record numbers. In 2019, more than 13 million Chinese experienced skiing, of which 72 percent were first-timers, according to a ski industry white book.
By 2022, the ski market is expected to be 26 billion yuan (about 4 billion U.S. dollars), a nearly fivefold increase from 2015 when Beijing won the bid to host the Winter Olympics. The Games have ignited unparalleled enthusiasm for winter sports among Chinese people.
A research report showed that a whopping 150 million Chinese people participated in ice and snow sports last winter, thanks to the country's vision of involving 300 million people in winter sports, with 650 skating rinks and 800 ski resorts ready by 2022.
Grand investments have been made in catalyzing such a movement. To improve resort accessibility, key areas like Chongli, a mountainous snow town, have been linked by high-speed railways to downtown Beijing with only a one-hour train ride.
TREND FOR EVERYONE
After several attempts, 10-year-old Wang Jiangrong finally made a beautiful backside turn on her snowboard at the end of a lesson in northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.
The little girl signed up for a five-day boot camp for rookies during her winter holiday. "To build up my body, my mom recommended the snowboarding course," said Wang. "The course is not easy, but it was a lot of fun."
More Chinese kids are performing on the ski resorts and ice rinks, as some 2,000 primary and secondary schools had included winter sports in their curriculum by the end of 2020.
Although the lack of snowfall is an issue across large swathes of China, the mushrooming facilities have made winter sports no longer a luxury for people in the freezing northeastern provinces.
For instance, teenagers in much warmer places, like in eastern Shanghai and Shenzhen in the south, have local access to regular training sessions for skating, ice hockey, and other winter sports.
East China's Jiangsu Province has built 42 venues for ice and snow sports for its residents, and the province aims to encourage over 300,000 students at 1,000 schools to engage in ice and snow sports by 2024, according to the Jiangsu Ice and Snow Sports Association.
Every winter since 2014, Yanqing District in northwest Beijing has offered skiing courses for around 3,000 local students at ski resorts. By the end of 2019, more than 16,000 students had whooped with delight on the slopes.
"Most students in my school come from rural areas. They had no chance to participate in winter sports in the past. Skiing can keep their body and mind strong and ignite their passion," said Zhang Wenxue, a primary school teacher in Yanqing. Enditem
