On the shore of Taoshan Lake in Qitaihe City, Heilongjiang Province, the 82-meter-high Qitaihe Short Track Speed Skating Championship Hall stands majestically. Walking into the progress hall, display panels such as "Gold Medal List", "Wall of Honor" and "Champion Road" come into view, recording the development achievements and glorious history of the field of short track speed skating in Qitaihe. Qitaihe, a small city in the northeast, has gradually attracted widespread attention throughout the country and even the world with its unique ice and snow sports culture and booming ice and snow industry in recent years.
In the winter of 1986, coach Meng Qingyu, the founder of Qitaihe short track speed skating, overcame difficulties, innovated training modes, self-made training equipment, and established the first short track speed skating team in the province, leading a group of miners' sons and daughters and creating a road for reserve talent training. "Looking back at the early days of the establishment of the first speed skating team in our city, coach Meng Qingyu did it himself without a canteen, watered it without an ice rink, and did it himself without training equipment. Every time he finished pouring the ice, his leather gloves were soaked, and his hands were frozen red and swollen..."
From Meng Qingyu to Ma Qingzhong, Zhao Xiaobing, Zhang Jie, Dong Yanhai, Zhang Lizeng, four generations of coaches have constantly crossed the river by feeling the stones, developed a set of unique and effective speed skating training methods, and cultivated a large number of outstanding athletes, who dare to fight and strive for the first place in the arena, and have achieved remarkable results.
Up to now, Qitaihe has produced a total of 12 Winter Olympic and world champions, trained athletes to win 7 Winter Olympic gold medals, 4 Special Olympics gold medals, 177 world-class gold medals, 540 national gold medals, 16 world records have been broken, and the Chinese Olympic Committee awarded Qitaihe City the "City of Olympic Champions" commemorative trophy. Yang Yang, Wang Meng, Zhang Jie, Fan Kexin, Sun Linlin... A series of loud athlete names built the striking "city coordinates" of the Qitai River. Short track speed skating, a sport that has swept the world, has become a bright business card of Qitaihe.
The success of Qitaihe short track speed skating is inseparable from its profound ice and snow sports cultural heritage and strong support from the government. According to reports, successive municipal party committees and municipal governments have taken the country's cultivation of reserve talents for ice and snow sports as their own responsibility, attached great importance to and supported it, continuously improved policy mechanisms, increased investment, built ice and snow stadiums, improved sports infrastructure, strengthened the popularization of mass ice and snow sports, and improved the mechanism for the construction of the coach team. Last year, Qitaihe also set up a short track speed skating development fund to support the development of short track speed skating.
A movement that leads a city to develop and prosper. In recent years, Qitaihe City has gradually formed an ice and snow industry system with ice and snow tourism, ice and snow culture, ice and snow sports, ice and snow education, etc. as the core. Ice and snow tourism has become a new growth point, attracting a large number of tourists to experience the charm of ice and snow sports; Ice and snow education has gradually become a new business card of Qitaihe, cultivating a large number of ice and snow sports professionals for the whole country; The ice and snow sports industry has risen rapidly, and upstream and downstream industries such as equipment manufacturing related to ice and snow sports have developed rapidly.
Bainingdun Sports Equipment Technology Co., Ltd. is the first ice and snow economic manufacturing industry enterprise introduced by Qitaihe. In October last year, the Qitaihe Baining Shield sports equipment project was officially put into operation, planning to build production lines for ice blades, skis, speed skating clothing and other products, and build a roller skating training base and ice training base. "In the next step, we will vigorously develop the ice and snow equipment industry, and at the same time promote the deep integration of the ice and snow industry and related industries, build a complete ice and snow industry chain system, and promote the high-quality development of the ice and snow industry." The relevant person in charge of the company said. (Zhu Dawei, Li Longyi, Qu Xinming)
Photo courtesy of the Propaganda Department of the Qitaihe Municipal Party Committee.