Beijing 2022 ignites winter sports passion in east China

NANJING -- As the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics draws closer, winter sports are becoming increasingly popular in east China's Jiangsu Province, where 45 winter sports venues have been built, with a total of 553,200 square meters.

As one of the largest winter sports arenas, the skating rink in the Nanjing Olympic Stadium has seen a distinct increase in visitors in recent years. "The guests here have increased by about 30 percent annually from the year of 2018," said Yuan Jun, the man in charge of the ice sports club in the stadium.

Statistics show that the ice sports club in the stadium now receives about 50,000 amateurs and 40,000 trainees every year, with 400 visitors on average each day during the weekend.

Winter sports venues like the Nanjing Olympic Stadium have been springing up these years in Jiangsu, covering all the 13 cities in the province. Cities like Xuzhou, Changzhou and Huaian even built ski resorts in scenic spots.

To inspire people's passion for winter sports, Jiangsu has issued winter sports consumer vouchers for four consecutive years. Nearly five million yuan (about 786,000 thousand U.S. dollars) consumer vouchers have been issued this year.

The province also invited national-level winter sports coaches to attract young amateurs. Guan Weinan, a retired ice hockey national player, has helped the city of Nanjing establish an ice hockey team that won the silver medal in the national competition in 2019.