Ramping up Olympic preparations

China's commitment to hosting a truly exceptional Winter Olympics was on display over the weekend as the world's finest freestyle snowboarders and skiers served up a spectacular Big Air showcase at a stunning new 2022 venue.

After three days of daredevil jumps, spins, flips and tricks at the Air& Style Beijing FIS Big Air World Cup meet, Canada's Max Parrot and Japan's Miyabi Onitsuka grabbed the men's and women's snowboard titles, with Norwegians Birk Ruud and Johanne Killi crowned the freeski champions.

Apart from the breathtaking action at the regenerated Shougang Industrial Park, Olympic officials were left awestruck by the strides made by 2022 organizers－and, in particular, how plans to leave a lasting winter sports legacy are taking shape.

"It has been a wonderful time so far visiting the Winter Olympics community here in Beijing, which is a living demonstration of two things," said Juan Antonio Samaranch Jr, vice-president of the International Olympic Committee, on Friday.

"First, it's a dream to inspire 300 million people to practice and get involved with winter sports, and it's happening from school level to the top athletes. That promise is really happening. The legacy of the Winter Games has been delivered even before the Games.

"Second, the Olympics is not only about top athletes, it starts from school. It's a way of life and philosophy… congratulations, Beijing. This is really happening."

Last week's festival-like event was the 10th edition of a competition that has become a firm favorite with winter sports enthusiasts since it first arrived in Beijing in 2010, in the form of the Air& Style global series. The meet was added to the World Cup calendar in 2017, with freeski making its debut this year.

The new ramp is the first permanent construction of its kind and will host Big Air snowboarding and freeski at the 2022 Games.

The state-of-the-art structure, which cuts an impressive outline next to the former steel-mill site's old smokestacks, garnered rave reviews all weekend.

"It's very impressive and they (organizers) are way ahead of what they promised. We are so convinced that the Beijing 2022 Games will be an extraordinary success," added Samaranch.

"Beijing is doing extraordinary work, but not only for the 16 days of Olympic competition. What's difficult is maintaining efforts and energy after the Games.

"You can see the results of Beijing's impressive efforts even before the Olympics have started in Shougang Park or in the training center I saw this morning for speed skating. And you will see it in decades to come after the Olympics. This will leave an extraordinary legacy for Chinese people."

Athletes also gave the new Big Air venue a big thumbs-up.

"I believe the permanent slope will not only benefit the sport's promotion and development in Beijing, it will be meaningful for Big Air worldwide," said 15-year-old snowboarder Su Yiming, who was the best-placed Chinese finisher after ranking 11th in Thursday's qualification round, just failing to make the final by one spot.

"This new slope will be the venue for the 2022 Winter Olympics and it will be open to the public at the same time, which will have a very positive influence on the development of the sport."

Steep learning curve

Maintaining the new venue, which stands 164 meters long and 60 meters tall, will be no easy task.

"To ensure the new venue meets all the requirements, we have been communicating with experts from the IOC, the FIS and the Beijing 2022 Winter Games organizing committee," said Shougang slope official Liu Yuchuan.

"We have collected in-depth analysis on the design of the slope, in terms of all the systems such as protection, lighting and snow preservation. Now the new venue is capable of hosting top-level international events."

Last week's World Cup meet was the first time the new venue, which seats 6,000 spectators, has staged a competition.

"We have used this meet as a chance to train our team and test all the equipment," added Liu. "We asked our team to run this tournament just like the Olympics. We will keep improving and gaining more experience in the coming years to guarantee the quality of the 2022 Games.

"This is a permanent slope that will keep operating even after the Olympics. At the very beginning, we had to consider that it will be used for other winter sports apart from Big Air. It will also be used for national team training.

"We will also explore its business value, such as hosting entertainment activities like music concerts and other extreme sports events like skateboarding and BMX."

With temperatures not quite cold enough last week, Shougang's snowmakers were among the busiest workers at the meet.

"The detachable ramp at the Bird's Nest, which was used in previous years, needed 2,000 cubic meters of snow, but the permanent slope at Shougang needs 6,000－three times as much," said Liu Shuang of the snowmaking team.

"It's more difficult for us given the temperature of Beijing. The original plan was to finish the work in six days and in the end we just had three days to finish. The addition of freeski this year required us to make more snow."