Increasing winter sports participation
Since 2015, 346 million Chinese people have taken part in winter sports, equivalent to 24.56 per cent of the country’s population.
These figures reflect the aim of the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games to make China a winter sports country and have been made possible by a multi-faceted long-term national strategy, including the creation of more events and facilities and the training of more winter sports instructors, 29,000 of them in Beijing alone since 2022.
National mass-participation events have been staged as part of the National Popular Ice and Snow Season. Aimed at the general public, they include World Snow Day, the International Children’s Skiing Festival, the National Popular Ice and Snow Week, and the Youth Ice and Snow Winter Camp.
In the Chinese capital itself, the annual Beijing Winter Sports Festival has contributed to increased participation. The eighth staging of the event, between December 2021 and April 2022 attracted 1.4 million participants, who enjoyed events held at 34 venues in 26 of the city’s parks.
Participation has also been boosted by the creation of more local and regional competitions such as the Beijing Youth Ice Hockey League, which is now the largest in Asia, with around 3,000 participants each year, and the Beijing Inter-School Hockey League for Primary and Middle School Students.
Backing this up has been a major increase in infrastructure and facilities. China is now home to 876 indoor and outdoor ski resorts, up from 570 in 2015, while cities of over 500,000 inhabitants have been encouraged to create new ice rinks. As of 2022, there were 1576 across the country, up from 157 in 2015, with skating instructors being trained and employed at each of them. Several of the competition venues used at Beijing 2008 have also been repurposed for winter sports, creating yet more opportunities for people to engage in ice and snow pursuits.
In addition, new facilities have been built at schools and staff trained to deliver these classes. Winter sports clubs have also been set up, giving children further opportunities to develop their ice and snow sports skills, even in China’s warmer southern regions.