体坛英语新闻：China to ignite national passion for winter sports in 2022 Olympic bidding

BEIJING, Jan. 12 (Xinhua) -- It's estimated there will be over 300 million Chinese to be involved in the winter sports if Beijing and Zhang Jiakou win the bidding for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games.

Over one-third of China's territory has huge potential for developing winter sports. The bidding for the 2022 Winter Olympics will encourage 300 million people in northern China to take part in winter sports, tremendously promoting young people's participation in and the popularization of winter sports.

Beijing 2022 bidding efforts will effectively elevate the competition skills of Chinese athletes, and help achieve in China the all-round and balanced development of summer and winter Olympic sports, as well as ice and snow sports.

China also hopes to take the advantage of bidding and hosting the Winter Olympics to guide a new lifestyle of fitness and health in the country.

Currently, the people participating in regular physical exercises in Beijing and Zhangjiakou has accounted for 49 percent and 37 percent of their total populations respectively.

Beijing 2022 bidding is aimed at achieving a balanced development of winter sports in Beijing, Zhangjiakou and their surrounding areas, further promoting sport-for-all activities to raise the percentages of sports populations of the two cities to 55 percent and 45 percent respectively, as well as popularising healthy lifestyle among their residents, for the ultimate goal of enhancing the overall fitness and health levels of the whole nation.

To achieve the above objectives, Beijing and Zhangjiakou will organize on a regular basis sports meets for students, employees, professionals, all members of social strata, ethnic groups and people with disabilities, and promote with great efforts such winter sports as skiing, ice skating, ice hockey and curling.