Ice rinks in Jiangsu have seen a growing number of customers, young and old, as temperatures on hot summer days reach about 40 degrees centigrade in the province.

Yuan Jun, head of the ice-skating club at Nanjing Olympic Sports Center, said more children and parents have played skating at the venue in this summer holiday, which reached about 600 at peak hours on weekends and 200 on weekdays.

Some 500 people are learning ice-skating at Xuzhou Olympic Sports Center on the weekends as the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics has made more and more Chinese people fall in love with winter sports. A manager at the center said a coach usually had 15 learners of figure skating before Beijing 2022 and now about 30 learners after the Olympic Games. Meanwhile, there are now two hockey teams using the venue and the number of participants in training has almost doubled.

(Photo/Yao Yiyi)

Zhu Chengxing, president of the Jiangsu Ice and Snow Sports Association, said the province’s support policy and other measures have also stimulated public interest in winter sports. The province issued a 3-year action plan for the development of ice and snow program-based tourism on June 3, 2021. This year, the province also held promotion activities and provincial-level competitions.