Beijing 2022 encourages winter sports industry in Baiyin

LANZHOU, China, Nov. 20 (Xinhua) -- As the Beijing 2022 Olympic Games approaches, more and more winter sports fans are encouraged to participate in skiing at Huada resort in Baiyin, Gansu Province, which promotes the development of the sports industry.

Gou Faxia, the manager of Huada resort, predicted that over 100,000 tourists would come to the resort this winter because of the skiing fever brought about by the Beijing Olympic Winter Games.

"The resort is disinfected three times a day. It will be opened to the public soon this month."

Gou said that both skiers and winter sports professionals will enjoy their stay at the resort because of the comprehensive ski facilities.

The Baiyin national snow event training base was established by Shandong Huada Construction Group in late 2019 as a part of Huada resort, which contains a skier service center with over 100 rooms, an over 75,000 square meters ski resort, a nearly 3,000 square meters indoor training hall and a biathlon field with 3,000 seats.

Skiers from the Gansu Winter Sports Management Center are currently training at the Huada resort. Team manager Liu Pengfei said that since the center was founded in 2019, over 20 members, who are crossover athletes, took part in training.

"The temperature and altitude here are very suitable for training and competition," said Liu.

The 2020-2021 China cross-country skiing championships kicked off at the training base this January. It was the first national winter sports event of 2021 and took place about a year before the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. Over 170 athletes from 23 teams across the country participated in the event at that time.

"I watched all races then, and it was really exciting," said Zhang Tao, a ski instructor in the resort.

Wang Hongwei, general manager of sports department of Shandong Huada Construction Group, said that the national training team of para cross-country skiing and biathlon will come to the base next January for preparation of the 2022 Paralympic Winter Games.

"All the preparations for athletes with disabilities are ready at the base," Wang said.

A statistic released last December by China's Renmin University shows that about 150 million people in China have participated in winter sports from 2019 to 2020.

"With the 2022 Winter Games approaching, the vision of getting 300 million people in winter sports is becoming a reality," said Wang, adding that winter sports industry has great prospects.