The flame burns in the cauldron during the opening ceremony of the Asian Winter Games in Harbin, Northeast China's Heilongjiang province on Friday. XINHUA
Featuring an extensive display of local culture and a high-tech visual feast, a spectacular gala show captured the imagination of the continent on Friday night, as President Xi Jinping declared the 9th Asian Winter Games in Harbin open.
Almost three decades after hosting the multi-sports event for the first time, the provincial capital of Heilongjiang province kicked off a bigger and better encore to the 1996 edition by promising to set a higher standard and provide a more inclusive stage for Asia's winter sports talent to compete, while sharing friendship in Northeast China's popular winter wonderland.
Following an opening performance, which saw 34 children, representing the Games' 34 delegations, light a giant ice lantern together in a gesture of Asian unity, Xi announced the opening of the Games, officially kicking off the biggest Winter Asiad ever.
A record 1,275 athletes will contest in 64 medal events across six sports — skating, ice hockey, curling, skiing, biathlon and ski mountaineering.
Accompanying the announcement, digital fireworks thrilled the 8,000 spectators at the Harbin International Conference, Exhibition and Sports Center, while real firecrackers sparkled in the sky above the Harbin Ice and Snow World, where opening ceremony festivities were also taking place.
With the giant floor screen lighting the way, the athletes' parade proceeded to the melody of Ice, Snow and Asia, played to the inspiring beat of traditional instruments from across the continent, as each delegation marched onto the stage under glittering clouds of silver snowflakes hanging from the ceiling.
During the parade, images of Harbin's mountains and rivers, its iconic ice sculptures and the city flower — the lilac — were projected onto the background screen, allowing visiting athletes and spectators to enjoy the host's unique characteristics in an immersive way.
Chinese athletes enjoy the festive atmosphere of the opening ceremony of the 9th Asian Winter Games in Harbin on Friday. JIANG HAN/XINHUA
Liang Huiling, president of the 9th Asian Winter Games Harbin Organizing Committee, extended a warm welcome to visiting athletes and delegation officials, taking pride in reuniting Asia's best winter sports talent in Harbin.
"Twenty-nine years ago, the flame of the Asian Winter Games ignited this city's passion and dream for ice and snow.
"Today, we are here to jointly witness Harbin become a dual-Winter Asiad city, a continuation of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics' legacy, which has promoted winter sports among 300 million Chinese people," said Liang, who is also governor of Heilongjiang province.
A three-chapter artistic performance, enhanced by technologies such as virtual reality and glasses-free 3D animations, captured the crowd's imagination with breathtaking projections depicting traditional Harbin rituals, such as ice harvesting from the frozen Songhua River, and the city's fairy-tale winter scenes of frost-covered branches glistening amid flurries of swirling snowflakes.
Suited up in costumes adorned with breathtaking lighting effects, performers on roller skates and junior athletes skating on a real ice track glided onto the stage to demonstrate the enthusiastic participation in winter sports in Harbin, a renowned training base for China's ice and snow sports talent.
After watching another international winter sports gala open in China, International Olympic Committee president Thomas Bach, who also attended the opening of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, said the Harbin event would likely exceed expectations.
"Knowing the expertise of the people of Harbin and of China in organizing great sporting events, the expectations are very high. As I know, China will exceed even these high expectations," he told Xinhua before the ceremony.
Impressed by the expansion of winter sports across Asia, Bach hailed the impact of Beijing 2022 and Harbin 2025 as a game-changer for ice and snow sports worldwide.
"These Games are part of the legacy (of Beijing 2022) and the development of winter sports in China is just breathtaking," said the German sports administrator, who will step down from his position at the IOC when his second term expires next month.
"You could see winter sports athletes from Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia (in Harbin). And in these countries, this excitement for winter sports is growing. This is how it should be, benefiting from this great legacy of Beijing 2022."
For the exciting finale, a group of skating children holding ice lanterns at Harbin Ice and Snow World journeyed to the center of the theme park to jointly ignite the Games' cauldron with the final torchbearer Zhang Hong, China's first speed skating Olympic champion at Sochi 2014.
The glow of the lanterns and the flame of the Winter Asiad lit up the freezing night in Harbin, as the cauldron, named "Bloom of the Ice Lilac", ignited in spectacular fashion and filled the Ice City with warmth.
