Xi Jinping fulfills sports dream with ski resorts and curling schools

In the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou, where temperatures are very hot most of the year, children are trading their flip-flops for skis and training on indoor slopes.

Farther west, high on the Tibetan plateau, Qinghai province has become an unlikely hub for curling, a traditional Scottish sport known to the Chinese as “kettle in the snow.”

And in the northeastern province of Liaoning, a group of retirees meet each day in winter and put on skates and hockey helmets for games played in an open-air rink.

Scenes like these, rare in the past, are becoming increasingly common as China’s ruling Communist Party pursues its ambitious campaign to turn the country – much of which receives no natural snow – into a world power. of winter sports.

The campaign began in 2015, when Chinese leader Xi Jinping promised that the country, which had just won the right to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, would have 300 million ice and snow sports enthusiasts when the Olympics took place. arrived.

Xi has made sporting success a cornerstone of his vision of the “Chinese dream”, a nationalist promise of prosperity and the country’s rejuvenation.

In a land where the leader’s words are seen almost as gospel, many people must have foreseen what would happen next: practically overnight, brands, investors, local governments and the population rushed to respond.

Ski resorts and skating rinks flourished across the country. Elementary and high schools rushed to create winter sports programs. Companies specializing in apparel and equipment for winter sports and après-ski entertainment have sprung up in large numbers.

“It was like a rocket taking off, and then suddenly everything changed,” said Carol Zhang, 50, a figure skating coach in Shenzhen, a humid, subtropical city in southern China. Zhang said the number of students she coaches has nearly tripled since 2015. “Today, a lot of kids want to do winter sports,” Zhang said.

A few weeks before the start of the Beijing Winter Olympics, Chinese state media triumphantly proclaimed that Xi’s goals had been achieved. The country now has 654 full-size ice rinks, 803 ski resorts and 346 million people “at least once took part in winter sports-related activities,” according to the official Chinese news agency.

Authorities said the number of people was calculated using a random sampling method. Some analysts have expressed skepticism about the numbers, pointing to the vague definition of what constitutes “participation” in a sport.

Still, there is little doubt that the campaign has had an impact. China’s ski resorts welcomed more than 20 million skiers in the 2018/2019 season, according to a recent industry report. That’s double the 2014 number and represents about a third of the number of days skied in the United States over the same period.

China wants to create a $157 billion snow sports market by 2025 – a move almost as big as the total world market in 2020.

At resorts near Beijing, cars with ski racks on the roof began to appear in parking lots. An après-ski entertainment culture is emerging with Chinese characteristics, with hot springs, “hot pots” (a traditional dish in the country) and karaoke.

The winter sports craze is not limited to skiing. Interest in snowboarding, hockey, figure skating and curling has skyrocketed

When Jing Gang, 41, moved back to his hometown of Tianjin in 2007 from Finland, he was disappointed to find that there were only two small skating rinks and almost no understanding of ice hockey, a sport for which he had fallen in love while studying abroad.

“I used to walk around with my hockey stick, and people would stop me to ask if I was going fishing,” recalls Jing. Others believed it was “a highly violent combat sport”.

Now, just over a decade later, Tianjin has three major hockey rinks and a youth league with around 20 teams. Jing, now the manager of one such rink, said the sport was gaining popularity in cities across the country.

Shan Zhaojian, a Chinese ski historian, drew a parallel between Xi’s campaign and a similar effort led by Mao Zhaojian, who believed that mass participation in physical activity was necessary for the working class to stay healthy.

“To build a strong nation, you need at least a strong body,” Shan said of Xi’s thinking.

China was not starting completely from scratch. In the northeast and extreme west of the country, the tradition of skiing and skating has lasted several generations. China also won gold medals in speed skating and figure skating.

But authorities, property giants and international brands interested in developing the winter sports market face challenges, such as the lack of natural snow in much of China, and the relative scarcity of sports infrastructure and public transport at ski resorts. .

In the capital, Beijing, the government has invested heavily in heavy snow-making machinery and new high-speed rail lines. Now residents can move quickly from the city center to the multibillion-dollar ski resorts and snow-capped mountains that exist near the capital.

In the warmer southern region of China, the solution was to build indoor ski resorts. Guangzhou Sunac Snow World, the second largest indoor ski resort on the planet, has four artificial snow ski slopes, each 400 meters long. The resort is part of an immense complex that includes a water park, a theme park and several hotels.

However, some sports remain beyond the reach of the masses. Ski lift tickets can cost upwards of US$100 (R$517), and a complete set of hockey equipment can fetch up to US$4,000 (R$20,000) – a fortune in a country where income per capita available is just over US$ 4,700 per year (R$ 24,000).

And cost is just one of the adverse factors; many Chinese also view winter sports as too dangerous, an impression that is not always incorrect.

In a country with a lack of qualified instructors, injuries are inevitable. More than 80% of China’s 13 million skiers are beginners. Many newbies protect their bottoms with stuffed animals – often turtles, but also other creatures. This helps protect them from falls and serves as a warning to other skiers to keep their distance.

Fear of falling is what prompted Bran Yang, 26, an education consultant in Beijing, to take his first snowboard lesson on a “dry” artificial slope (imagine a long, downward-sloping treadmill). His inspiration was videos of snowboarders he saw on Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, and also Chinese commercials starring Eileen Gu, an American ski star of Chinese origin.

Yang said he hopes to soon transition to beginner-friendly slopes to test his technique on real snow for the first time. But will he protect his ass with a turtle?

“Absolutely. I don’t want to get hurt,” Yang replied. “And I think it’s pretty cute.”

Yang’s willingness to keep trying makes him an exception. Only a fraction of first-time Chinese skiers try the sport a second time.

Authorities and companies hope that young people will prove to be more dedicated. More than 2,000 schools across China now offer skiing or skating programs. By 2020, 11 schools in Xining, the capital of Qinghai, offered curling programs.

Young athletes used to be trained by the state, but some wealthy parents are starting to pay for training at private clubs and purchasing equipment, seeing the experience as a way to improve the CV of their children seeking university places abroad.

It is unclear whether enthusiasm for winter sports will persist after the Games. Some of the skating rinks are already showing deterioration, and smaller ski resorts have closed. But experts say the consolidation was predictable.

Promoting the spirit of the sport is one of the main goals of Jing, the administrator of the hockey rink in Tianjin, who also writes about hockey on his blog, “Hockey Dad”.

“Cheer up your kids, but don’t mindlessly pressure them,” Jing wrote in a recent post addressed to other Chinese parents of hockey players. “Our main goal as parents of hockey athletes should be to instill in children a passion and love for the sport.”