Ready for a golden moment

With venues almost completed and testing events underway, Harbin has stepped up a gear in its final preparation for hosting an excellent Asian Winter Games next year to promote ice and snow sports in the region.

With preparatory work approaching the final 100-day countdown, organizers in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang province, are busy putting the finishing touches to venues, testing facilities while running operational drills as excitement builds in Northeast China in anticipation of welcoming more than 2,000 athletes from a record number of 34 National Olympic Committees to the continental sports gala in February.

All the competition venues for the Games — five for ice sports in downtown Harbin and another eight for snow events in Yabuli, a ski resort cluster about 200km from Harbin — are existing facilities, and all the refurbishment and equipment upgrades needed to meet international standards will be completed by the end of this month, according to Chinese organizers.

As the first main venue ready for competition since early August, the Harbin Ice Hockey Arena has hosted a series of testing events, such as the national men's championship and a club tournament of four teams from the Shanghai Cooperation Organization member countries, over the past month. This provided a needed opportunity to test air conditioning, refrigeration, ice-making, as well the scoring and statistics display among other key functions all of which were put through their paces in real-time operation.

The original ice rink in the arena has also been downsized to a smaller surface, according to the new Olympic Council of Asia standards, to speed up the game and encourage greater physical contact to make it more entertaining to watch.

The arena's expanded 5,500-seat spectator tribune, air-conditioned to a comfortable temperature of around 15 C, about 25 degrees higher than the ice surface maintained at — 10 C, will guarantee a pleasant experience for fans from home and abroad.

"Everything and everyone involved in running a game here have been tested and examined. The venue operational team has also built some nice chemistry through the drills, which is quite important for smooth operation during the Games' time," said Li Yutian, a deputy competition director with the Chinese Ice Hockey Association.

Ready already

The 2025 Harbin Asian Winter Games will mark the biggest representation of Asian countries and regions with 34 NOCs, the most in history, having confirmed their entries.

A total of 64 medal events across six sports will be competed for from Feb 7-14. Making their debut at the event will be mixed doubles curling, ski mountaineering and synchronized aerials of freestyle skiing.

It will be Harbin's second time staging the continental gala event following its maiden hosting in 1996, and the third edition to be held in China after the 2007 edition in Changchun, Jilin province.

The next major test, among a total of 14 events to be held through January, will be a four-day short-track speed skating national tournament that kicks off on Nov 14. This is expected to involve 180 athletes in 30 teams at the Heilongjiang provincial ice sports training center.

A critical transformation rehearsal will follow the short-track tournament at the same rink to test the procedure of the facility switch for short-track to figure skating events at the same venue.

Boasting ready-made facilities and an efficient operational plan, Harbin is confident it can deliver a sustainable and memorable edition of the Games with strong Chinese characteristics and Asian style, said organizers.

"Our preparatory work has entered the final stretch of pre-Games testing and operation. Everything is processing well and on track. We are committed to hosting a world-class event representing Asian spirit and Chinese style to promote the unique charm of winter sports," Yu Hongtao, Harbin's Party chief and a vice-president of the organizing committee, said during a chef de mission seminar last month.

Officials and representatives of the OCA and 32 NOCs took part in the assembly of chefs de mission — team managers of participating delegations, and none of them left disappointed.

The Chinese host's readiness achieved on a tighter-than-normal schedule and organizational expertise have impressed delegation chiefs.

"They have the knowledge, the wherewithal and the government support. And they have the experience from the Beijing Winter Olympics in 2022 and also the Hangzhou Asian Games last year, which have brought a lot of expertise in organizing international sporting events in China. So I'm sure we will see a very high-standard Games here in Harbin," said Vinod Kumar Tiwari, the deputy director general of OCA.

Due to the pandemic-enforced delays on the bidding procedure, Harbin was only confirmed host of the 2025 edition by the OCA one year ago, on a much shorter notice compared to previous hosts that were decided at least five years in advance.

As the host of the following 2029 edition of the Asian Winter Games, Saudi Arabia sent its chef de mission Ahmed Bin Dhuwayhi to the seminar, hoping to learn from Harbin's best practices to promote ice and snow sports in his own country for the first major winter sports event to be held in the western Asian region.

He wasn't disappointed at all.

"Since we are hosting the next event at the Trojena mountain destination, we will learn a lot from China. We know it's a big challenge to be better than China, but we are trying our best to host the best games we could," he said.

After a visit to the Yabuli resort area following last month's seminar, Ganesan Sundaram Moorthy, the manager of OCA's sports department, said he cannot wait for the Games to open.

"The venue is impressive. I can't wait for it to snow and then we will know how beautiful this place is," Moorthy said of the competition slopes at Yabuli.

"Hopefully, some world records can be broken here (during the Games). And the quality of this place will be better than some other championships around the world. I guess this could host the Olympic Winter Games as well."