Ski ‘hot’ needs calm thinking

Fueled by the coming 2022 Winter Olympics, ski is becoming a new tread of Chinese people. And capital that is swarming into the ice and snow industry is hoped to “turn snow to platinum”. Against this background, ski resorts are springing up like mushrooms.

But in the last snow season, ski accidents surfaced from time to time and drew public attentions. Law makers and political advisers expressed that the ice-snow sport industry is in rapid development, but its safety standards shall be perfected as quickly as possible and the safety threshold shall be lifted as well.

Zhai Zhihai, deputy to the National People’s Congress said the perfect of protective facilities in a ski resort shall be first emphasized among other sport safety issues. For the present, standard for protective facilities’ construction in many ski resorts is poor. In most cases, they mended the hole after an accident. And even if some ski resorts do apply to a certain protective standard, the standards they apply to are different from each other. A “hard standard” for ski resort shall be unified.  

Deputy Han Yuchen said that in recent years, ski resorts have seen fast development, resulting in significant shortage of qualified employees and deficiency in visitor training and guiding.  On the other hand, many “zero-basis” visitors go to the ski field without any guide and accreditation, a threat to safety of both the skier his or herself and other skiers.

Recently, the Chinese Ski Association modified the China Ski Resort Management Practices, and specified requirements on management bodies, ski resorts and skiers. The practices is still in pilot run and in the process of soliciting public opinions. It said, the formal regulation is expected to be in effective this winter as a compulsory safety standard for China’s ski resorts.  

Deputy Guo Naishuo said that an safety environment is the foundation for sustainable and stable development of a sport. The growing popularity of ski in recent years covered the problems of the industry. Frequently accidents are forcing the upgrade in safety protection level. But whether the regulation can be virtually enforced is noteworthy. A “hard” supervision is needed.