The 9th National Ice and Snow Season kicked off in Fushan district, Yantai, a coastal city in East China's Shandong province, on Feb 11, and more than 100 ice and snow athletes from across Shandong gathered in the city to enjoy a national feast of snow and ice sports.

Yantai is known as the "snow nest" of China due to the large amounts of snowfall it receives every year. Blessed with exceptional seasonal advantages, winter sports in Yantai have been on the rise in recent years, and it has also responded actively to the country's request of getting 300 million people to take up winter sports since 2015 when Beijing successfully won the bid to host the 2022 Winter Olympics. The city has also launched programs to popularize ice and snow sports and bolster the high-quality development of the sports industry.

Fushan district has put an emphasis on attracting more investment for ice and snow sports since 2015, and the district has explored new ways to accelerate the innovative development of the snow and ice sports industry.

When the central government called for more participation in light of the Beijing Winter Olympics, the education bureau of Yantai's Fushan district began offering free classes for winter sports since 2019 to students in kindergartens through junior middle schools. Ice and snow sports have been added to the compulsory physical education classes in the district's primary schools.

In the future, Fushan plans to beef up efforts to set up a complete industrial chain featuring ice and snow sports, with an aim to boost people's enthusiasm to join in the national fitness campaign, and expand and upgrade Yantai's ice and snow leisure tourism sector.

The coastal city of Yantai in East China's Shandong province sets up schools for ice and snow sports, which are igniting enthusiasm among students to participate in winter sports in the post-Olympic era. [Photo/Shm News]