Home / Life
Olympic fever stimulates fans of winter sports, Erik Nilsson and Yang Yang report.
Beijingers can play a real-life version of the terrorists-versus-good guys video game Counter-Strike on ice at the Bird's Nest this winter.
They can act out the first-person shooter game as a laser-tag competition while scuttling across frozen water at the iconic 2008 Beijing Olympics venue, also known as the National Stadium.
That is, if they don't instead zorb (roll inside a transparent ball) on ice or swish down "ice slides" in inner tubes. Or zip across frozen sheathes on all-terrain vehicles or snowmobiles.
Beijing's enthusiasm for winter activities is soaring as the mercury plummets, industry insiders agree.
China's 2022 Winter Olympics bid has added fuel to the fire. But it's far from the only reason residents are discovering new ways in which ice is nice.
Wukesong Ice World Sports Land was over capacity when it opened Asia's largest skating rink in early December.
Lines snaked outside the 15,000-square-meter arena, which includes a 1,800-square-meter outdoor rink that will be the city's only outside rink open through summers thanks to Dutch technology, during the free-admission period, when management didn't tally visits.
The main rink is connected to a smaller area by a twisting, 210-meter lane.
About 2,600 people visited the arena, which has a 900-skater capacity, on the first day tickets were sold in early December.
"We expected a lot of people," Beijing Wukesong Arena Management Co Ltd media marketing supervisor Dong Xiaoyuan says.
"But far more came than we'd imagined."
The arena has since opened an online-shopping channel to sell tickets to put a chill on overcrowding.
"Winter sports aren't as popular in China as in Northern Europe," Dong says.
"Beijing is trying to develop them. Demand is huge in the capital because there aren't many places for people to do winter sports."
The Wukesong arena is unique in that skating is next to basketball courts, such events as zombie runs and the MasterCard Center, which often hosts big concerts.
The arena also contains a 10-meter-high ice slide for inner-tubing, plastic seals (as in the animals) pint-sized skaters straddle like "training wheels" and glass booths for magic shows.
"People in eastern Beijing already have a lot to do," Dong says.
"We hope to provide a fun space for people in the West."
The city's East hosts the 40,000-square-meter Qiaobo Ice and Snow World, which offers year-round indoor skiing.
It takes its namesake from 1992 Winter Olympic 500m and 1000m silver-winning speed skater champion Ye Qiaobo, whose advocacy of an indoor winter-sports arena compelled the facility's construction.
It's the largest of its kind in China, general manager Xu Bin says.
The company operates two equally sized arenas in Beijing and Zhe-jiang province's Shaoxing that lure a total of 300,000 annual visitors, a 20 percent year-on-year growth rate.
And it plans to open more in southern China's Nanjing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Chengdu and Chong-qing cities. Chongqing and Nanjing rank among the country's "three furnaces", so called because of their scorching climates.
The existing centers' peak is summertime when 80,000 guests visit, Xu says. About 50,000 of them visit the Zhejiang facility in the sizzling months.
It seems the areas most interested in snow-and-ice sports are places without snow and ice.
"Winter sports have rapidly developed in China in recent years," he says.
"The 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics and Beijing's 2022 bid accelerated this."
He explains teenagers are the center's primary targets.
"We started various activities for students, such as spring and autumn outings, and winter and summer camps. We get more than 20,000 students a summer. And 2,000 teens attend our summer camp. More Chinese teens are falling in love with skiing."
So are older and younger people, Xu says.
"Many practice indoors in the summer and ski in places like Japan, Europe or the United States in wintertime."
China is supporting its 2022 Olympics bid with backing from perhaps the most iconic 2008 Beijing Games' venue - the Bird's Nest.
The venue will host the opening and closing ceremonies if China's proposal is successful.
The stadium last month staged the 2014-15 FIS (International Ski Federation) Freestyle Skiing World Cup and Air + Style's snowboarding competition Air and Style Contest.
It opened the sixth consecutive Happy Snow Festival on Jan 10.
The landmark has already adorned a frozen lake inside the park with lanterns designed like people and buildings, flora and fauna.
The 70,000-square-meter area - the largest of its kind in the capital - is divided into zones for ski jumping, skating, biathlons and kids' sledding.
A 10,000-square-meter ski slope with a jump that's 15 meters high and 110 meters long has also been constructed in the square south of the Bird's Nest - a festival first. The 25,000-square-meter main area hosts 11 activities.
Workers Stadium is among other iconic venues promoting both winter sports and China's new Olympic bid.
"We want to represent the winter Olympic hopes of Beijing's 6 million (government-supported) workers," Beijing Workers' Sports Complex director Yuan Hao says.
The stadium has hosted a snow festival for the past three years on its 30,000-square-meter lake formed during its construction half a century ago.
The event offers such recreational opportunities as dogsledding and skating. But this year for the first time it also features displays of ice lanterns and sculptures, and cloth lanterns fashioned in the traditional style of Sichuan province's Zigong city.
The 8,000-square-meter soccer field has been covered with LED peach blossoms.
"We've extended the ice rink's hours," Yuan says.
"So visitors have time to do winter sports and enjoy the exhibitions."
Artworks represent the specialties of Beijing and Heilongjiang's provincial capital Harbin. Chiseled in ice are the Temple of Heaven and the Forbidden City's Nine-Dragon Pillars. Also rendered are Harbin's Sophia Cathedral and old railway station.
The display also features ice carvings of previous Winter Games' emblems and torches.
"As a Beijinger, I support China's Olympic bid," Dong says, emphasizing she's speaking for herself and not her employer.
"My friends like skiing and skating. If China wins the bid, the government will pay attention to building infrastructure. There will be more places for residents to participate in winter sports."
Contact the writers at erik_nilsson@chinadaily.com.cn
