A primary school named Harbin Nancheng No. 1 Primary School will host the curling contests at the 2025 Asian Winter Games slated to open on February 7 at its ice hockey stadium.
From April to October in 2024, the venue underwent months of renovation in preparation for the upcoming games in Harbin, the provincial capital of Heilongjiang in northeast China.
Now the venue is installed with sports lighting, sound reinforcement equipment, communication aids and meteorological monitoring devices.
And its ice surface has been upgraded.
"The temperature of the ice surface for curling competitions is at minus 5.5 degrees to minus 6.5 degrees Celsius, and the difference is not allowed to be too significant. When we entered the venue in April, experts found that the height difference of the ground of the original ice hockey stadium was not up to standards of curling competitions. A team of experts conducted analysis, and came up with a conclusion that the original ice surface for ice hockey games must be completely dismantled from the basic refrigeration and re-leveled. This project alone took us nearly two months," said Wu Yunlong, deputy director of facilities and operations at curling arena operation team in Pingfang.
The team also addressed a series of technical challenges regarding ventilation, dehumidification, and temperature control.
Classrooms of the school have been transformed into locker rooms, where sports teams can change clothes, record information on whiteboards, get relaxed and watch games live on TVs.
One of the reasons why Harbin chose to hold curling events in the primary school is that it hopes to engage more children to join winter sports.
In 2002, the school set up its first ice hockey team for girls, and in 2017, it built the first ice hockey stadium in China's rural primary schools, which serves as an excellent training venue for teenagers playing ice hockey.
Pingfang has trained 266 male and female ice hockey players for the country, province and city, of whom 68 have been selected for the national team. Among the members of the national ice hockey team to compete at the upcoming Asian Winter Games, 10 come from this school.
Asian Winter Games' curling arena set at primary school stadium
Highlighting the "Future Energy" as a key direction for China's strategic emerging industries, the country's nuclear energy development, guided by its three-step strategy, has seen major strides in the past year, said a member of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).
In a recent press briefing, Xin Feng, also deputy general manager of China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), updated the media on the progresses China has achieved under the strategy.
"China's three-step strategy for nuclear energy development -- from the thermal reactor to the fast reactor and the fusion reactor -- was formulated in 1983 as a medium- and long-term plan. For the thermal reactor, over the past year, our 2.0 version of the Hualong One technology has been approved. This is a unified and fully self-owned intellectual property based third-generation nuclear power technology solution. And the Linglong One small modular reactor also successfully completed its cold-state functional test last year and is expected to be put into commercial operation this year," he said.
For the second and third steps, Chinese researchers and engineers have achieved milestones in the past year with the government support, Xin noted.
"Then for the fast reactor, last year, a closed-cycle system for an integral fast reactor successfully achieved preliminary standard design. We will continue to solve its engineering technology challenges. As for the fusion reactor, in 2025, with national support, we established the China Fusion Energy Company in Shanghai. And our Huanliu-3, a platform for conducting research and development of fusion technology, made a big stride, with an iron temperature in it achieving 117 million Celsius and an electron temperature reaching 160 million Celsius. We will continue to adhere to the development strategy and focus on technological research and engineering technology development," Xin said.
The fourth session of the 14th NPC and the fourth session of the 14th National Committee of the CPPCC kicked off in Beijing on March 5 and March 4, respectively.
The "two sessions" -- which refer to the annual meetings of China's supreme organ of state power, the National People's Congress (NPC), and its top political advisory body, the National Committee of the CPPCC -- are a key event on the country's political calendar and offer a window into the country's development direction.
China's nuclear energy development makes great strides with three-step strategy: CPPCC member
