Shanghai success in ice event boosts Beijing's 2022 bid

China might be the biggest winner in the recently concluded World Figure Skating Championships in Shanghai, despite the fact that it didn't top the medal tally.

In addition to winning a silver and a bronze medal at the March 23-29 event, China burnished its reputation with the sport's international body as Beijing seeks to host the 2022 Winter Olympic Games. And it boosted people's passion for winter sports in Shanghai, a nontraditional powerhouse of ice and snow.

"From Shanghai's good organizing of the world championships, I don't doubt Beijing's capability," said International Skating Union chief Ottavio Cinquanta on Saturday, the same day the International Olympic Committee's evaluation commission concluded its five-day inspection evaluating Beijing's bid for the 2022 Games. Cinquanta is also a member of the International Olympic Committee.

China has won six figure skating Olympic medals, including one gold, but it had never hosted the 119-year old World Championships until the event in Shanghai, which saw an average of 85 percent attendance.

Ren Hongguo, China's winter sports chief, said the successful event had a positive impact on the IOC.

"The opening ceremony and the competition were wonderful. The IOC evaluation commission could see it through the TV broadcast," Ren said. "The timing is good."

"Cinquanta told me that he had been worried before the championships that China had never held a major figure skating event before. But he is very satisfied now, saying it was one of the best world championships he has seen," Ren said.

The IOC's evaluation commission spoke highly of Beijing's capacity for hosting a successful Winter Olympics despite serious concerns about pollution.

Almaty, the former capital of Kazakhstan, is Beijing's only bid rival.

The northeastern part of China has always been a cradle of winter sports in China because of natural conditions, and it is home to most of the country's elite skiers and skaters.

As the winter sports territory expands to the entire country, Shanghai's reputation for ice and snow events has also been rising fast in recent years, thanks to other major events held in the city, including the ISU Short Track World Championships and ISU Grand Prix of Figure Skating.

"We've enjoyed the world-class ice skaters' performance very much - their innovative moves accompanied by funny and interesting soundtracks in front of a big crowd," Ge Lei, a mother of a 5-year-old daughter from Shanghai, said about the World Championships.

Ge said she would like to encourage her daughter to learn ice-skating in the hope it will make her braver and improve both her athletic and aesthetic capacity.

Xue Rui, a white-collar worker in Shanghai, said: "I've fallen in love with skiing, although I only skied once a few months ago in Hokkaido, Japan. My determined goal is to ski at all the world's major ski resorts."

Contact the writer at tangyue@chinadaily.com.cn