Snowboarding skiers take rest aside one of the 35 ready-made ski trails at the Genting Resort Secret Garden in Chongli county, Hebei province. (Provided to China Daily)
China's Hebei Province, which will co-host the 2022 Winter Olympics, has unveiled its plan for an anticipated winter sports boom in the next seven years, local media reported Tuesday.
Beijing, together with Zhangjiakou in Hebei Province, won the bid to co-host the 2002 Winter Olympics in July 2015.
Hebei's winter sports development plan (2015-2022) requires each big city in the province to build at least one qualified ice and snow sports venue by 2022 with barrier-free access for the handicapped.
The province will train more winter sports competitors, aiming to have home-grown players compete in the Olympic Games.
Zhangjiakou and Chengde will develop themselves into ice sport training centers with expansion of a ski training base in Chongli, Zhangjiakou, which will host the cross-country, freestyle and some other skiing events at the 2022 Olympics.
From 2016, Hebei province will spend 50 million yuan (7.6 million U.S. dollars) annually on training management and service staff. By 2022, more than 50 schools in the province will have winter sports programs. The number of people who participate in winter sports regularly in Hebei is expected to reach 30 million, 40 percent of the province's population. The ice and snow sports industry in Hebei will reach 100 billion yuan (15.2 billion dollars) by that time.
