Intro:

Asia's largest Ice World Park opens at Wukesong in Beijing, a 2022 Olympics candidate city, on Thursday.

Script:

Wukesong Ice World Sports Land opened in the Chinese capital of Beijing on Thursday.

The Ice World Sports Land has a total area of 15,000 square metres, making it the largest in Asia.

It is one of the major activities to promote the winter sports and the 2022 Winter Olympic bid among the Chinese public.

Zhao Yinggang, deputy secretary-general of the bid committee, said China plans to promote winter sports across the country by bidding and hopefully hosting the 2022 Winter Games:

SOUNDBITE: (Mandarin) Zhao Yinggang, deputy secretary-general of the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games bid committee:

"From July 2015 to 2022, it will be the second phase for us to promote the winter sports in China. We will try to popularising the sports widely and also in-depth across the country. We want to increase the number and the size of winter activities, and establish some well-known brands. We will encourage more people to get involved, and then get better in the sports. Our goal is to have 300 million Chinese to participate in winter sports by 2022,"

The upcoming season-opening Freestyle Skiing World Cup in Beijing's Bird's Nest stadium will be the first of six international competitions in the capital city and Shanghai.

Zhao also said China are trying to promote the winter sports among the young generation.

SOUNDBITE: (Mandarin) Zhao Yinggang, deputy secretary-general of the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games bid committee:

"We want to hosts more winter sports events in China. The competition itself is a process for the athletes achieving their best. It is also a chance to show the hosting city, and a good opportunity to increase the tastes of its inhabitants. It is a process attractive enough for the youth. We plan to have more young people watching these events, meeting the athletes, talking to the athletes, including the Olympics champions. They will definitely be influenced and encouraged by the athletes."

After several other potential bidders dropped out, Beijing is now considered a front-runner to win the games in a two-city race with Almaty, Kazakhstan.