A member of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) called on Beijing to better support winter sports ahead of the upcoming 2022 Winter Olympics and Paralympics.
The CPPCC member, Wang Yanxia, is also a standing member of China Zhi Gong Party's Beijing Municipal Committee and deputy director of the sports department of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. Wang said that it is important to make sure the legacies of the Winter Olympics to benefit average citizens and be of long-term use. She stressed that more local talents specialized in winter sports should be trained.
Wang spoke at a panel discussion held by the sports section of the CPPCC in the afternoon of March 5. She said it takes a huge number of professionally trained staff specialized in winter sports to host a high-standard Winter Olympics. They include game organizers, technical officials, scorekeepers and referees, and volunteers.
Wang pointed out that China's lack of winter sports professionals is at present a weak spot. She took for example the alpine skiing to be held in Beijing's Yanqing district, and said that approximately 1,300 supporting staff members are required for the game - far more than what is currently available. Wang warned that if all the supporting staff were hired from foreign countries, no "legacies" would be left after the games.
To address this, Wang suggested that more local talents should be trained and utilized in order to establish a solid foundation for the long running development of China's winter games.
Wang added that winter games are far from popular in China. Many efforts are needed to promote the sports, such as fostering a cultural atmosphere and improving the competitiveness of the games.
She said that Chinese athletes are performing better in ice sports but less successful in snow sports, adding that organizers should put on more high-profile games and events. Creativity, organization, management, competition level, and all other aspects should be combined to improve the winter games' qualities in order to attract more participants from the general public.
Wang also said that traditional methods used in making artificial ice and snow are too susceptible to meteorological conditions, and that they are both costly and unsustainable. She called on developers of these technologies to put more efforts into R&D, so that the facilities of winter sports can be easily set up and accessed, therefore providing a solid support for popularizing the winter games across China.