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Having competed at the Winter Olympics twice since 2010, Norwegian snowboarder Stale Sandbech is familiar with world-class ski resorts. But the experience of training at the Genting Resort Secret Garden in Zhangjiakou, Hebei province, went beyond his expectations.
"I am surprised how good the condition of the snow is here," said Sandbech, the men's slopestyle silver medalist at last year's Sochi Winter Olympics. "The pitches are really good to build jumps. It's not too steep, and it's not too flat. It's very good for snowboarding."
Pitch refers to a slope's angle. Ideal jumps have compatible takeoff and landing pitches, helping competitors achieve top performance.
Sandbech, who was training at the Hebei resort last week for the Air & Style contest in Beijing on Saturday, was among a group of elite snowboarders impressed by the resort's upgrade plan.
As a proposed venue for snow sports in Beijing's 2022 Olympics plan, Secret Garden, a ski and tourism complex in Zhangjiakou's Chongli county, about 220 kilometers northwest of Beijing, has finished the initial design for freestyle skiing and snowboarding, and will cooperate with foreign event and resort operators to complete the rest of its facilities to high standards, the resort announced last week.
The two snow events will be held on refurbished trails and at a new snowboard park designed by Ecosign, a Canadian resort-planning company that served the 2010 and 2014 Winter Olympics. The park will have Asia's biggest half-pipe and International Ski Federation-standard slopestyle courses, according to the resort's plan.
"Though we have a tight schedule for refurbishment and new construction, we are confident about finishing it two years before the Games to let our consumers and the national team enjoy Olympic-caliber facilities in advance," said David Xiao, CEO of Secret Garden.
Secret Garden also announced it would cooperate with the Air & Style tournament, offering a pre-event training camp for athletes competing in the annual big air event - aerial stunts performed off a ramp.
It has extended its partnership with Switzerland-based winter sports and tourism resort LAAX to introduce international specialists in resort management, ski training and track grooming, with a view toward training a competent local team for the 2022 Olympics.
Reto Gurtner, president and CEO of LAAX, said: "With the experience we offer and the dynamic of China moving forward, I am absolutely convinced that Secret Garden will become world-class."
As for supporting infrastructure, Secret Garden will work with LAAX to design and construct 2,490 youth apartments around the venue areas by 2017, and to build a 3,000-square-meter emergency medical center to serve not only the Olympics but consumers in the long term.
