Author: Liang Qin

The 9th Asian Winter Games has entered the third competition day after the opening ceremony, and Harbin, which is in the snow and ice, continues to ignite the passion for sports.

As the host of this Asian Winter Games, the Chinese delegation is dominated by many Olympic champions and world champions, and the stars are shining. Since the start of the competition, the athletes' performance on the field has been full of highlights and good news has been frequent.

The young player Li Fanghui, who came on the bench, seized the opportunity and joined hands with his teammate Zhang Kexin to win the gold and silver medal in the women's U-shaped venue skills final of the freestyle skiing women, winning the first gold medal for the Chinese delegation this year. Olympic champion Xu Mengtao once again competed in the Asian Winter Games after 18 years, and lived up to expectations and won the gold medal in women's freestyle skiing aerial skills, achieved a Grand Slam achievement, and launched an attack on his fifth Winter Olympics. The flag bearer Ning Zhongyan set a new Asian record with a time of 1 minute 45.85, winning the men's 1500m gold medal in speed skating in the Asian Winter Games. The Chinese short track speed skating team, which led the old to the new, ended the Asian Winter Tournament on February 9. Despite many accidents and interferences, it ended with 2 gold, 2 silver and 4 copper, showing strong competitiveness.

These results are derived from the day-to-day persistence of participating athletes, and also due to the continuous expansion of China's ice and snow sports. In recent years, professional ice and snow sports have been greatly improved in terms of site construction and training methods, and their talent reserves have become stronger. With the holding of a series of events, the public's enthusiasm for ice and snow sports has also been ignited. This enthusiasm is projected in the viewing atmosphere of many ice and snow events, and is also reflected in the personal participation of ice and snow sports.

It can be seen that the accumulation and investment in ice and snow sports in the last Winter Olympics cycle brought rich returns and laid a solid foundation for subsequent development. As the largest comprehensive winter sports event in Asia, it has made important contributions to the continuous promotion of ice and snow sports, and also carries the exchange significance that is more resonant with Asian cultural significance.

The number of participating countries and regions and athletes reached a new high in this Harbin Asian Winter Games. A total of more than 1,200 athletes from 34 Asian countries and regions signed up for the competition. Among them, ice and snow athletes from Cambodia and Saudi Arabia made their debut, marking that Asian ice and snow sports further broke through regional restrictions and their circle of friends continued to expand.

In terms of project settings, 31% of the sub-events entered the Asian Winter Games for the first time, allowing Asian ice and snow sports to compete with higher-level competitions and align with the world. For example, the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics has added curling mixed doubles, the Beijing Winter Olympics has added 2000-meter relay for the short track speed skating mixed group, and the synchronization of multiple skiing and freestyle skiing aerial skills will be a competition event at the Milan Winter Olympics, and these events have been added accordingly in this Asian Winter Games.

There are obviously multiple considerations behind this: on the one hand, it is conducive to Asian athletes to test their training results in intercontinental competitions, compete and communicate with more outstanding opponents, adapt to the participating atmosphere in advance, and prepare for the Winter Olympics one year later; on the other hand, it can also synchronize the popularization of science rules and backgrounds for the audience, and increase the attention of the event in dynamic competitions. At the same time, as the Double Asian Winter City, Harbin has unique ice and snow sports conditions. With the help of hosting events, it will create a louder ice and snow city business card and attract more high-level events and youth events to be implemented.

Asian countries are connected by mountains and rivers, and Asian culture is rich and colorful. In the 7-day competition, we look forward to the participating athletes creating more excellent results and realizing their dreams. We also look forward to using sports as a medium to make the Asian Winter Conference a new link of cultural exchanges, and everyone will write a beautiful melody of "Ice and Snow Dream with Oneness, Asia is Oneness with Oneness".