Uphill race for China's winter sports campaign

Struggling for balance on the snow, 10-year-old Gu Yutong is at the forefront of China's efforts to lift its winter sports pedigree as it seeks to host the 2022 Winter Olympics.
"I really like skiing, because all young people like to try new sports," said Gu, wearing rainbow-rimmed ski goggles and holding a Chinese flag as her classmates played in the snow behind her.
An International Olympic Committee (IOC) team visits Beijing this week to assess its bid to host the Games ahead of a July vote that the Chinese capital -- which hosted the spectacular 2008 summer Games -- is the favourite to win.
Beijing's only challenger in the Olympic race is the Kazakhstan city of Almaty after a string of European candidates withdrew.
But Chinese officials are concerned that their lack of a winter sports tradition might hamper their chances.
The "300 Million People Winter Sports Plan" has been launched in response, to "enhance the public acquaintance about and participation in winter sports", according to the official Xinhua news agency.
"I didn't know how to ski before, but I learnt how to do it over the past few days and I had a great time," said Gu, who is from Yanqing, the county slated to host the alpine skiing portion of the Games.
Participation in skiing remains relatively low, with only 5 percent of people from Beijing -- by far the biggest city with nearby slopes -- having tried the sport, according to the People's Daily newspaper.
Ice hockey is another sport to be given a boost. Schools have been given funding to rent commercial rinks, the China Daily newspaper reported, adding a "record" 96 teams involving 1,500 children had registered with a local Beijing league.
If China does host the winter Games, authorities will also have to contend with far shorter slopes than in the European Alps or North America's Rocky Mountains, much lower annual snowfall and a fraction of the resorts.
Questions have been also been raised over transportation within the bid area -- which stretches over 200 kilometres -- as well as Beijing's notorious pollution and China's lack of top class winter sports infrastructure.
A new high-speed train system is already under construction to slash travel times between key Olympic sites, while officials have promised to confront pollution and build stunning facilities.
- Talent drive -
In the past two decades, China has established itself as a powerhouse in mainstream sports such as swimming.
But ahead of last year's Sochi Games vice sports minister Yang Shuan acknowledged that it was only a "medium" ranked country in winter sports.
It won a respectable three gold medals at the last winter Games in Russia, following its "historic breakthrough" with five in Vancouver in 2010 -- albeit in a few niche events, notably speed skating.
A third of the 98 events at Sochi are not played competitively in China, Yang lamented, and the country has virtually no bobsleigh infrastructure, let alone a national team.
As well as pushing numbers, the drive to encourage winter sports is also an attempt to breed a new generation of top-level talent.
Previously, officials tried to "create" star athletes in sports where there is little history in China by plucking them from activities the country dominates.
Freestyle skier Han Xiaopeng, the first man to win a Chinese winter Games gold, and upcoming snowboarder Zhang Yiwei, had both excelled at gymnastics before they were introduced to the slopes.
Four years after short track speed skater Yang Yang won China's first women's gold in 2002, Han clinched China's landmark men's gold at Turin, a victory helped in no small part by the training of Canadian Dustin Wilson.
Top Chinese skiers look set to continue enjoying the services of foreign coaches.
Ma Shi, who runs a ski school in Zhangjiakou, around 200 kilometres north of Beijing, where the nordic and freestyle skiing events would be held, said: "We are sending our athletes for training in foreign countries such as New Zealand, Austria and United States.
"Once we have the advanced training methods introduced from the foreign countries we will be able to improve to their level and challenge their monopoly," he added.
But foreign coaches themselves doubt whether such goals can be fulfilled in time for 2022.
"Most Chinese skiers... see winter sports as a new fashion," said Italian Martina Merlet, who spent six years in China as the first foreign ski coach accredited by the country.
"Once they get to the resorts they might not find what is necessary to transform curiosity into a passion and lifestyle," she cautioned.