Coasting toward gains despite COVID-19

The action is not limited to northeastern parts. Hebei, Jilin and Qinghai provinces, and the national capital Beijing, are among the areas that saw the highest skier growth rates as well as big sectoral investments.

According to a report from Beijing-based consultancy Intelligence Research Group, China's winter sports market recorded 2018 sales revenue of 394.5 billion yuan, up more than 10 percent year-on-year. The snow sports segment alone grew by 19.5 percent to 32.5 billion yuan, or more than 8 percent of the total.

That was in line with the national goal of expanding the winter sports market size to 800 billion yuan and involving 300 million people in ice and snow sports by 2022.

A development plan announced last March envisages mass-level ice and snow activities, and promotion of related sports into a season-agnostic industry.

Small wonder, middle and high schools now include winter sports in their annual outdoor activities for students. And Chinese have taken a shine to curling, a winter sport popular in the West.

Although all signs point to a boom, industry insiders are quick to clarify this is the beginning still, given that the industry in developed economies took four to five decades to reach its massive scale.

But even they can't hide their joy that big-ticket companies such as China Construction First Group Corp, a wholly-owned subsidiary of State-owned China Construction Engineering Corp, are involved in creating terrific infrastructure for the 2022 Games.

The company has completed the construction of the ultra-modern curling venue called the Water Cube for the 2022 Games at the National Aquatics Center in Beijing, which opened to public in December.

"It took us less than a year to transform the Cube's original main pool into a curling venue that meets Olympic standards," said Huo Wenzhen, Party secretary of the transformation project team of CCFGC. Incidentally, the company was the main builder of the NAC for the Beijing Summer Olympics of 2008.

"During this period, we not only transformed a water pool into four ice sheets filled with steel structures to host curling, but finished other construction work necessary for the Olympic main venue, including the lighting system, the ice-making system and the air-conditioning system. The venue is now available for contests and public use," Huo said.