China has fulfilled its promise to the world to involve as many as 300 million people into ice and snow sports when it bid for the 2022 Winter Olympics.

According to data released by the National Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday, 346 million people nationwide had participated in ice and snow sports by October of 2021 since Beijing's success in the bidding in 2015.

The strategy of expanding ice and snow sports to the South, the West and the East of the country and during all four seasons worked as 143 million of the 346 million participants were from the eastern part of the country, where the sports used to be less popular because of the climate.

The Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics will kick off on February 4.