(Beijing) The Beijing Olympics, which open on Friday, “will forever change the scale of winter sports” by boosting the practice on a global scale, assured Thursday Thomas Bach, the president of the International Committee Olympic.
Posted at 9:14 p.m.
“China has already made history by surpassing the goal of introducing 300 million of its citizens to snow and ice sports,” the leader said as he opened the 139and session of the Olympic body.
If the image of the Olympic alpine skiing site built from scratch in the middle of arid mountains, with 100% artificial snow, leaves many foreign observers perplexed, “today we can say it: China is a country of winter sports,” Bach said.
Beyond “the health, social and economic benefits for the Chinese population”, this influx of new practitioners “will forever change the scale of winter sports” and open “a new era at the global level”, he said. he continued.
According to the chairman of the Beijing-2022 organizing committee, Qi Cai, Chinese statistics counted “346 million” of occasional winter sports practitioners in October 2021, moving “from small regional pockets to the whole country”.
The rise of Chinese skiing, measured by the dozens of resorts sprouting from the ground as well as the urban indoor slopes, is a boon for foreign manufacturers of ski lifts and specialists in snow groomers or snow cannons.
“All these companies”, mainly based in the Alps and in North America, “will greatly benefit from the development of winter sports in China”, insisted Thomas Bach.
According to the 2021 international report on mountain tourism by Swiss expert Laurent Vanat, the number of skiers has stagnated for the past twenty years at 400 million worldwide, with a decline in its traditional markets.
Thomas Bach also insisted on the environmental legacy of these Games, with the development of renewable energies to power the sites, even though the impact of artificial snow on water resources raises a number of concerns.
On the other hand, he made no allusion to the political tensions surrounding this edition for several months, with the diplomatic boycott decreed in particular by the United States, Australia and Canada.
These Games “enjoy strong support from the international community”, assured Thomas Bach, recalling the unanimous adoption of the resolution of the United Nations General Assembly declaring the Olympic truce.