Changes happening at Olympics venue

Zhangjiakou in North China’s Hebei province has been embracing numerous changes since the city was announced co-host with Beijing for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games more than two years ago.

According to Hebei educational authorities, the province plans to set up 100 primary and middle schools especially for teaching winter sports from 2018 to 2022.

The move aims to encourage more youth to participate and nurture more winter sports talents.

Besides students, Hebei has trained more than 2,000 sports teachers across the province since last year to learn winter sports so they can teach their students about skiing or skating.

During this process of popularizing winter sports among children, Zhangjiakou is a key place in Hebei.

During the ongoing 2017-2018 snow season, which started in November and is expected to end in April, 500 pupils from different local schools of Zhangjiakou will be invited every day to ski venues to learn how to ski for free.

The activity will continue until the total number of students reaches 10,000 this season.

It is organized by the city’s educational bureau, which said activities like this will continue and more than 400,000 students of Zhangjiakou will participate in winter sports by 2020.

Also to greet the coming Olympics, Zhangjiakou has set a goal to build itself into a venue with more green elements.

According to the Hebei Forestry Bureau, about 580 square kilometers of trees will be planted, mainly around ski resorts in Chongli district. The district is set to hold most of the ski events when the 24th Winter Olympic Games starts in 2022.

“About 88.5 percent of them have been finished, and the rest will be planted in 2018,” said Zhao Shunwang, an official at Zhangjiakou Forestry Bureau.

Contact the writer at zhangyu1@chinadaily.com.cn