Zhangjiakou forges closer ties with Finnish winter sport city

China’s northern city of Zhangjiakou in Hebei Province took a new step forward last weekend in the preparations for the 2022 Winter Olympics, as it gained full support from Lathi, a city in southern Finland known for snow sports.

The two cities signed a twin-city agreement on November 25. According to the agreement, the two will develop pragmatic cooperation on developing winter sports, building sports venues, manufacturing winter sports equipment and facilitating the interaction of related industries.

The signing ceremony was held at the Lahti city hall. sary for Zhangjiakou to learn from

Wu Weidong, mayor of Zhangjiakexperienced cities like Lahti, espeou and director of the Winter Olymcially in the development of winter pics Office in the city, said that both sports, organization of large-scale sides have maintained close contact events and training of personnel, said in the Wu.pasttwoyears.Themayorsof the two cities signed a “Common AcPekka Timonen, the mayor of tion Plan” in Zhangjiakou in March Lahti, noted that 2019 is the Year of this year. Winter Sports between Finland and

At a meeting in May with Finnish China, and Lahti hopes to speed up Ambassador to China Jarno Syrjala, its winter sports cooperation with Hebei Provincial Governor Xu Qin Zhangjiakou. offered a proposal to further promote Also on November 22, the govcooperation. Zhangjiakou is gearing ernment of the Xuanhua district of up for the 2022 Winter Olympics Zhangjiakou signed an agreement together with Beijing, and it is neces- with JK Pro Coaching, a Lahti-based winter sports training company, which will provide training for crosscountry skiing and ski jumping among other winter sports activities.

Zhangjiakou will be responsible for staging cross-country skiing, ski jumping, Nordic combined, biathlon, snowboarding and freestyle skiing events. Lahti is famous for its rich sporting tradition, especially in various winter sports. It is the only city in the world to have hosted the FIS Nordic World Ski Championships seven times.