The opening ceremony of the 2026 Winter Olympic Games took place on Friday at Milan's San Siro Stadium with simultaneous ceremonies in Cortina, Livigno and Predazzo.

China has sent a 286-person delegation to this year's Games, the largest ever to an overseas Winter Olympics. Which speaks volumes about how winter sports have developed in the past four years since the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.

Indeed, one of the legacies of that event has been the growing popularity and rapid development of winter sports in China. Data released by China's General Administration of Sport in February 2025 showed that 313 million people nationwide had taken part in winter sports since the close of the Beijing 2022 Winter Games.

In terms of winter sports forms, these include various activities such as ice skating, skiing, and ice-based entertainment. Demonstrating this expansion, skiing, which was originally exclusively a leisure activity in northern areas, has expanded to western and even southern regions, after the Beijing Winter Olympics. For example, the indoor ski resorts received more than 1.25 million visits in 2025 in Wuhan, Hubei province. Operators said visitors increasingly arrive not only from within the province, but also from neighboring Hunan and Anhui provinces, as well as coastal hubs such as Shanghai and Zhejiang province.

As a result of this increased popularity, the country's ice and snow sports and related industries, such as skiwear, have experienced rapid development since the Beijing Winter Olympics.

The boom has fueled rapid industrial expansion. From 2016 to 2024, the size of China's ice and snow industry surged from 364.7 billion yuan ($52.56 billion) to 980 billion yuan, and was estimated to have surpassed 1 trillion yuan in 2025, according to the latest annual China Ice and Snow Economy Development Report.

The post-Beijing Winter Olympics wave of popularity for ice and snow activities has also had a very positive demand-driven effect on the development of related ice and snow manufacturing industries and technologies, such as ice-making machines for ice rinks. And the development of the ice and snow industry is also promoting the integrated development of agriculture, culture and tourism.

The rise of winter sports has not only injected impetus into the economic development of such regions as Northeast China and Xinjiang, where the development of established ski resorts and winter tourism has been rapid, but also become an indicator of the improved living standards in the country, as more families have the wherewithal to enrich their lives with sports such as skiing.

Winter sports are also part of the Healthy China 2030 initiative, which was first incorporated as a national strategy in China's national economic and social development during the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20) period.

Illustrating this, Chongli in Hebei province, one of the venues for the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, has become a hot winter sport destination every winter, and also a summer resort for tourists and local residents. Facilities in Beijing for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games have also been used efficiently for both winter sports and other activities, which has greatly improved the quality of life for Beijing residents and provided a sightseeing opportunity for tourists from both home and abroad.

As Thomas Bach, International Olympic Committee honorary president for life, said of China's winter sports development, involving millions of people in winter sports in China represents "a totally new dimension for winter sports worldwide". This growth in participation and facilities is "a great legacy" and will continue to drive winter sports forward, both in China and globally.

That being said, the development of winter sports in China is regarded as a key initiative that integrates competitive sports, mass fitness, industrial development, consumption promotion, coordinated regional economic development, industrial upgrading and technological innovation. Consequently, the achievements attained by Chinese athletes at the Winter Olympics not only reflect the high-quality development of relevant industries and technologies but also embody the coordinated progress of social and economic welfare in China.