Heat is on for ice and snow stars

With only six weeks to go before the Olympic flame lights up Milano-Cortina 2026, China's winter sports contingent is braced for the tough challenge of proving its prowess on ice and snow without the benefit of home advantage.

As the race for qualification heats up and their preparatory work enters the home stretch, China's ice and snow sports teams are going all out on the World Cup series, at home training bases and overseas camps to try to earn as many qualification quotas as possible, while finetuning their techniques, tricks and routines for the 2026 Winter Olympics, which open in Milan on Feb 6.

With the nine-gold, all-time best campaign at Beijing 2022 already consigned to history, the current delegation preparing for its Italian job is looking to draw strength from their home Games' legacy with better facilities, more experience and greater grassroots promotion overall to back up the country's winter sports ambition, said Chinese State Councilor Shen Yiqin.

Shen called on Chinese athletes to strive for glory for their nation at Milano-Cortina 2026, encouraging them to push ahead with their final preparations with confidence, while staying calm and level-headed to compete at their best in Italy.

She also reiterated the importance of adopting a vigilant and strict anti-doping approach throughout the preparation, sticking to the country's perpetual "zero-tolerance" attitude toward doping, to compete fairly and win clean medals at the winter sports extravaganza.

Shen made the remarks on Wednesday while meeting with athletes and coaches at their training base in Beijing.

During the visit, Shen observed the training sessions of different teams, including curling, short-track speed skating and freestyle skiing, and inquired about the teams' training programs, measures to prevent injuries, as well as their logistical support.

The 2026 Winter Games feature 116 medal events — seven more than Beijing 2022 — to be contested at 13 venues spread out from Milan's urban areas to Italy's northern mountain regions, including Cortina d'Ampezzo, Bormio and Livigno, all renowned Italian Alps resort clusters.

After the completion of Olympic qualifiers for all ice events last week, Team China has qualified 20 men and 21 women for four of the total five ice sports in Milan — speed skating, figure skating, short-track and curling — with hockey the only one without Chinese representation, according to the National Winter Sports Administrative Center.

With qualifiers for all of the skiing, snowboarding and sliding sports still ongoing, an estimated 120 Chinese athletes are expected to make the cut before the Jan 19 deadline to compete in 86 medal events at the Games.

Following its mighty performance at home in 2022, Team China will send its largest ever delegation to an overseas edition of the Winter Games in February — a strong testament to its effective winter sports promotion, said Yu Haiyan, a deputy director of the administrative center.

"The expanding representation of Chinese athletes and teams in Milan backs up our country's goal to continue promoting winter sports after Beijing 2022," Yu said during media briefing on Tuesday.

"It shows that, with the care and support of the central government, the talent development at the elite and grassroots levels has flourished as expected."

Another impressive Olympic campaign, following the pinnacle of Beijing 2022, is very much needed to maintain the country's surging momentum in winter sports, with over 350 million people now engaged in ice and snow activities.

Taking advantage of yet another Olympics, public consumption of winter sports and tourism packages has emerged as a key contributor to China's economic growth, with winter sports tourism predicted to generate a total revenue of 630 billion yuan ($90 billion) from ticketing, accommodation, catering and other relevant services during the 2025-26 season, according to the China Tourism Academy.

To maintain that momentum, Chinese winter sports athletes have to deliver in Milan, despite facing a much tougher challenge than on home turf, with all the international powerhouses growing ever stronger through the current Olympic cycle.

"We need to be prepared for a more difficult and much more fierce competition in Milan without the home advantage," Yu said, referring to China's seemingly waning strength in some of its traditional ice sports.

The short-track speed skating team, as China's most decorated winter sports program, having contributed 12 to the country's total haul of 22 Olympic gold medals, has particularly felt the heat, as it struggles to keep up with the scintillating pace of red-hot powerhouses like Canada and the Netherlands, as evidenced by its thin medal harvest of just one gold across four ISU World Tour events this season.

The stagnant talent development in skating disciplines — including figure skating — has seen China's competitive edge tilt toward snow sports, with two-time Olympic champion freeskier Gu Ailing and her snowboarding counterpart Su Yiming, men's reigning big air Olympic champion, spearheading Team China's golden ambitions in Italy.

Both Gu and Su have shown impressive early-season form by winning their respective World Cup season openers in freestyle skiing halfpipe and snowboarding big air, respectively, earlier this month at the Yunding Snow Park in Chongli, Hebei province, throwing down the gauntlet to their international challengers.

China's freestyle skiing aerials squad, a perennial medal contender on the international stage, is also brimming with confidence for a golden visit to Italy having just completed a sweep of men's, women's and mixed team titles at its home World Cup leg, also in Chongli, over the weekend.