Wang Xueli (director of sports industry development research center of Tsinghua University)
The Beijing Winter Olympics and Paralympics are special winter Olympics. First of all, there is no precedent for holding the Winter Olympics under the influence of the global covid-19 epidemic. Although there are some playing methods of the Tokyo Summer Olympic Games that can be used for reference, the different climate characteristics in winter and summer and the global evolution of covid-19 virus variant strain have posed many challenges to the organizing committee, Beijing, Zhangjiakou and even China. Therefore, this will be a very difficult winter Olympic Games.
Secondly, this winter Olympics is a milestone for the development of world ice and snow sports and ice and snow industry. In terms of the pattern of world ice and snow sports and ice and snow industry, winter sports have developed very mature in areas with advantages in natural resources. Like the United States, Canada and some countries in northern Europe, they are all powerful countries in ice and snow sports, and ice and snow sports have a long history.
From this point of view, ice and snow sports have been in a sectorau area of development. Based on the existing natural regional conditions, there is not so much room for growth. Therefore, it is difficult to predict the trend of rapid growth of winter sports population. The same is true from the perspective of industry. The snow and ice sports powers themselves have advantages in the construction and manufacturing of relevant venues, facilities and equipment. Therefore, the ski resorts in these countries and regions are also very mature, and there is not much incremental space only by updating at regular intervals.
However, the Beijing Winter Olympics has provided a huge market and huge growth space for the development of global ice and snow sports, including the development of ice and snow industry. According to the data just released by the State Sports Administration, the number of people participating in ice and snow sports in China has reached 346 million, fulfilling the solemn commitment of “driving 300 million people to participate in ice and snow sports” put forward during China’s bid for the Winter Olympics, which has also increased the huge consumer base and potential growth space for the ice and snow industry.
Third, sustainable development is regarded as a very important concept for the Winter Olympics. The utilization of venues and facilities after the Games is a problem that has never been easy to solve in the Winter Olympic Games. Compared with the summer Olympic Games, the venues and facilities related to the Winter Olympic Games in history are less likely to be continuously utilized and developed after the Winter Olympic Games. Therefore, the use of temporary venues and facilities will not be used after the Winter Olympic Games, which is a compromise strategy between comprehensive cost and post competition utilization. For example, many venues in Pingchang Winter Olympic Games are temporary venues, which will be demolished and no longer used after the Winter Olympic Games.
The Beijing Winter Olympics has built many permanent venues rarely designed and built for winter sports in history, such as Shougang ski jump platform, national ski jump center “xueruyi”, national snowmobile sled center “xueyoulong”, etc. the design of these venues has incorporated the post competition utilization into the planning from the beginning. This provides a new benchmark and model for sustainable development for the Winter Olympic Games.
For China’s ice and snow industry, Beijing won the right to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, which played an accelerator role in the development of the industry. China’s ice and snow industry was originally a very immature industry, with incomplete industrial structure and low level of technology and technology. With the advance of the preparations for the Winter Olympics, China’s ice and snow industry has achieved rapid growth, which is mainly reflected in three aspects.
The first is infrastructure construction. The number of ice and snow fields in China is growing very fast. In 2015, there were less than 500 snow fields in China. Now there are 803 indoor and outdoor snow fields, an increase of 41% over 2015; Ice rinks are increasing faster. Now there are 654 standard ice rinks, an increase of 317% over 2015.
The second is the development of ice and snow equipment manufacturing industry directly driven by infrastructure and venue construction. This is a very important part of the ice and snow industry. Our original ice and snow equipment manufacturing industry either has products at the lower end of the value chain or prefers light equipment such as clothing. Professional equipment such as snow roller and snow maker are not our strengths, and even many of them are still blank. However, in the construction of a large number of ice and snow venues and facilities, especially in the construction of some non Winter Olympic venues, China’s ice and snow equipment manufacturing industry has obtained market opportunities. Manufacturers see the market space and will actively invest in R & D. therefore, China’s ice and snow equipment manufacturing industry has been upgraded rapidly and many blank areas have been filled.
The third industry to get more development is the ice and snow service industry. First, ice and snow education and training. Due to the preparations for the Winter Olympics and the promotion of ice and snow sports and ice and snow culture, the number of teenagers learning skiing, flower skating, ice hockey and other sports is expanding, and the ice and snow training industry has developed rapidly. Second, ice and snow tourism. In 2020, affected by the epidemic, the population of ice and snow tourism in China decreased relatively. However, from before the epidemic to 2019, the skiing population increased very fast, reaching more than 20 million people in 2019. The third is the ice and snow competition performance industry. Originally, we basically did not have an ice and snow competition system for the public. However, after the successful Olympic bid, China began to have ski Grand Prix, flower skating competition, ice hockey competition, etc. for teenagers. It is worth mentioning that Pang Qing and Tong Jian also adopted the rehearsal method of ice stage drama in the promotion of flower skating.
In general, the Winter Olympics has made China’s ice and snow industry chain more complete and the industrial structure more balanced, which has accelerated the development of China’s ice and snow industry. (Lu Yueling also contributed to this article.)
