The 2025-2026 National Ski Orienteering Challenge concluded in Fenglin County, Yichun City of northeast China's Heilongjiang Province on Sunday, with 23 teams from nine provinces and municipalities across China competing on snow-covered tracks against beautiful scenery.
The competition featured three events of short-distance hiking orienteering, 100-meter ski orienteering, and short-distance ski orienteering, involving over 1,000 participants, divided into ten groups, including youth and adult groups.
In order to balance the competitive needs of professional players with the enthusiasm of ice and snow sports lovers, the race course was carefully selected in the primeval red pine forest, integrating the checkpoints with the picturesque scenery of the Lesser Khingan Mountains.
"The course design combines fun and challenge. It's fun because it incorporates many local folk features, and I think the challenge comes from the snow field, which is quite different from traditional orienteering on flat ground," said Tong Xuelin, a contestant.
Apart from the competition, players and visitors can also enjoy food fairs, performances, and scenic areas to fully experience the unique charm of the place in winter.
National Ski Orienteering Challenge concludes in Heilongjiang
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has lowered its global economic growth forecasts for 2026 to 3.1 percent in the World Economic Outlook (WEO) report published on Tuesday, while keeping its projection for 2027 at 3.2 percent.
This marks a deceleration from the estimated 3.4 percent growth achieved in 2025. Before the outbreak of the Middle East conflict, the bottom-up forecasts for global growth would have been 3.4 percent in 2026 and 3.2 percent in 2027.
The forecast incorporates the impact of the war and assumes that it will be limited in duration, intensity and scope, with disruptions fading by mid-2026.
Under the reference forecast, global headline inflation is expected to increase to 4.4 percent in 2026 and decline to 3.7 percent in 2027.
If the conflict and the ensuing spike in oil prices last longer, global economic growth in 2026 will fall to 2.5 percent, while global inflation will climb to 5.4 percent, according to the report.
In extreme cases, global economic growth in 2026 could drop to two percent, the report warned.
To be specific, the U.S. economy is projected to grow by 2.3 percent in 2026 and 2.1 percent in 2027, although higher trade barriers introduced since April 2025 are expected to continue to weigh on activity.
In the euro area, growth is projected to decline from 1.4 percent in 2025 to 1.1 percent in 2026 before edging up to 1.2 percent in 2027. The forecasts for 2026 and 2027 are each 0.2 percentage point lower than those compared in the January 2026 WEO Update.
The 2026 growth forecast for emerging market and developing economies is revised down by 0.3 percentage point, to 3.9 percent, while the outlook for advanced economies remains broadly unchanged. With risks still tilted to the downside since the January 2026 WEO Update, the IMF suggested a comprehensive policy package combining domestic measures with coordinated international actions to strengthen resilience and foster adaptability.
It also stated in the report that "trade restrictions play a limited role in correcting imbalances but can worsen output," and urged countries to cooperate and take coordinated actions to restore stability to international economic relations.
IMF lowers global growth forecast for 2026 to 3.1 pct
