At the Capital Gymnasium, former figure skater Sha Tong finally made it to the Winter Olympics: as an ice skater.
"It's a pleasure to meet so many top athletes up close and personal, and it's a great honor for me to be able to participate in the Winter Olympics in this way." Sha Tong, 20, is a sophomore majoring in athletic training at Beijing Sport University. Unlike other ice refills, the ice rink at the Capital Stadium was all too familiar to her.
Sha Tong's other identity is a figure skater. Because his father was a figure skating coach, Sha Tong began to learn figure skating from the age of 3, and won the second place in the national pair skating and the first place in the team skating. Like all ice and snow athletes, Sha Tong regards participating in the Winter Olympics as his dream. Later, due to injuries, she had to choose to retire.
After retiring from the army, Sha Tong was admitted to Beijing Sport University. As the Beijing Winter Olympics approached, she suddenly found that the stage of her dreams was not far from her. She signed up as a Volunteer for the Winter Olympics and was lucky enough to be an ice refiller in figure skating.
The job of an ice keeper is familiar and unfamiliar to Sha Tong. Figure skaters jumping on point ice during training and competition will leave large or small pits on the ice surface, which requires staff to do the ice work. Before pouring ice, volunteers are required to refill the ice. These volunteers are ice creamers.
"With the repair of the ice repairer, the athletes will not make mistakes because there are holes in the ice, which will affect the performance." After every two sets of training or competitions, the ice surface needs to be refilled once. Ice creamers need to wear skates, and two-thirds of the snow bucket in their hands is snow and one-third is water. When replenishing ice, the pit is leveled with snow, then watered, and finally the excess snow is scraped away with a caliper. Each time the ice is replenished, 10 ice refillers are required to play together and complete the work quickly within minutes.
"Ice feeders not only need good eyes, they also need teamwork." In the team of ice refillers in the Capital Gymnasium, there is no shortage of ice skating athletes in ice hockey, ice dancing and other ice sports. Similar experiences make everyone very talking. In fact, before becoming ice creamers, these athlete-turned-volunteers didn't know much about the job. After becoming an ice refiller, everyone deeply realized that they were not actually a bystander of the Winter Olympics.
From an athlete to a student, Sha Tong has never left the ice rink and has never stopped learning. She often joked that the ice refill's seat was a "VIP seat," she said. From the perspective of the ice refiller, you can see every subtle movement of the athlete. This unique volunteer experience also gave her the opportunity to learn from the world's top athletes up close.
"This ice rink at the Capital Stadium was very kind to me. When I was an athlete, I dreamed of competing on the same stage as the athletes I loved. Because of my volunteer service, I became an ice refiller in the Winter Olympics and got the opportunity to participate in the Beijing Winter Olympics, which is also a dream come true. ”