New frenzy for ice and snow sports

Performances of Gu, Su at Beijing Olympics likely to spark industry growth across the country

The stellar performances of China’s freestyle skier Gu Ailing and snowboarder Su Yiming at the Beijing Winter Olympics are likely to spark frenzied interest in winter sports across the country, experts said.

However, long-term expansion of the popularity of winter sports in China will require more than “a oneoff bullet” if sustainable growth is to be achieved, they cautioned.

Gu, 18, claimed gold medals in the women’s freeski big air and halfpipe, and silver in the slopestyle discipline. Born in San Francisco, California, to a Chinese mother and US father, the teenager, known as Eileen Gu in the United States, shot to prominence before the Beijing Games after winning multiple international freeski championships.

Su, who recently turned 18, made the nation proud after winning gold in the men’s snowboard big air event following his silver medal in the slopestyle competition.

“Eileen Gu, in the lead-up to the Games, was a Chinese sports superstar in the making and she seems to be living up to that billing,” said Mark Thomas, managing director of S2M Consulting, a China-focused sports event company.

“Su Yiming, having won gold in the Beijing Winter Olympics big air snowboarding, is set for Chinese superstardom,” he added.

Gu and Su’s success at the Games puts them on the same level as exNBA star Yao Ming and retired tennis player Li Na, who won two grand slams, Thomas said.

“There is no doubt they will help drive the popularity of winter sports in China just as Yao did for basketball,” he said.

Su and Gu will be sports megastars for many years to come and “can be important ambassadors promoting the participation and growth of Chinese winter sports”, Thomas added.

Michael Lin, senior business director at Mailman, a Shanghai-headquartered global sports consultancy, said the performances of Gu and Su “will expedite the already increased interest in winter sports across the nation” and they will likely stand as pioneers and idols for younger generations.

Mark Dreyer, author of Sporting Superpower, a book on China’s sports industry, said: “Clearly, Eileen Gu has been a big story. I think she is definitely a celebrity and is being embraced by certain sections of China.”

However, he said, the extent to which Gu could influence the next wave of children’s interest in winter sports remains to be seen. This is due, in part, to her unusual upbringing, which most Chinese might not be able to identify with.

Simon Chadwick, a professor in Eurasian Sport at Emlyon Business School in France, said, “to a certain extent”, there is already a winter sports frenzy in China.

“What Eileen Gu and Su Yiming have done is to probably bring alpine sports to a mass market, to make it more popular, not just among the affluent middle-class members, but across the population more generally,” Chadwick said.

Historically, following sporting success at the elite level, there is likely to be a boom in activity, such as huge bicycle sales in Britain after Team GB performed well in cycling at the 2004 Athens Olympics and the 2012 London Olympics.

Chadwick believes this will also be the case in China, and predicted a boom in alpine sports equipment sales.

The challenge for China is ensuring this is not just “a one-off bullet”, but sustainable growth in the sector.

Government strategy will be important to keeping young people in China engaged in winter sports, in particular alpine events.

“When young people are engaged with a sport, they are less likely to change, and their loyalty to that sport endures throughout their life,” Chadwick said.