Promise kept

The primary goal of staging the Winter Olympics in China is to "engage 300 million people in ice-snow sports" and promote the leapfrog development of winter sports in the country, Xi told International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach in Sochi, Russia, in 2014.

By October 2021, around 346 million people — about a quarter of the country's population — participated in ice-snow sports since China's successful bid to host the Winter Olympics, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.

"The goal has now become a reality," said Xi when he met with Bach in Beijing in January 2022.

China's fulfillment of its pledge to engage 300 million people in winter sports was praised by Bach, who described it as an "unprecedented, great achievement," and said it will become an important legacy of Beijing 2022 for the Chinese people and for the Olympic Movement.