On January 4, the opening ceremony of the 23th Vasaloppet China Changchun Jingyuetan International Ski Festival was held. Huang Qiang, Secretary of the CPC Jilin Provincial Committee, and Director and Secretary of the Party Leadership Group of the General Administration of Sports of China attended the opening ceremony. Hu Yuting, Deputy Secretary of the CPC Jilin Provincial Committee and Governor of Jilin Province, delivered a speech, Zhang Enhui, member of the Standing Committee of the CPC Jilin Provincial Committee and Secretary of the CPC Changchun Municipal Committee presided over the opening ceremony.

 

Originated in Sweden, Vasaloppet has a history of 103 years. Launched in 2003, the Vasaloppet China Changchun Jingyuetan International Ski Festival has become one of the highest professional events in the world. Having attracted a total of 1.15 million people to participate in ice and snow sports, this event won the titles of "Boutique Event for Sports Tourism in China" and "Top Ten Most Influential Ice and Snow Tourism Festivals in China".

 

Prior to the opening ceremony, Huang Qiang, Gao Zhidan, Hu Yuting and important guests attending the event came to the Jingyuetan Vasaloppet Museum, who learned more about the development history of Vasaloppet China and understood the research and development of ice and snow equipment, development of cultural and creative products for competitions and the building of tourism consumption scenarios in Jilin Province. Huang Qiang said that Jilin Province is abundant in ice and snow tourism resources, with a solid mass base for ice and snow sports, and ice and snow equipment such as snowboards and skates have strong market competitiveness, which creates unique advantages for us to hold large-scale events and accelerate the development of ice and snow economy. He hoped that the General Administration of Sport of China, Chinese Olympic Committee and Worldloppet Ski Federation would, as always, strongly support Jilin, strengthen their guidance on Jilin, and help Jilin to continue to run the Vasaloppet China Changchun Jingyuetan International Ski Festival as well as more other high-level international and domestic competitions and a variety of mass sports activities. They would make vigorous efforts to popularize ice and snow equipment in Jilin, help build famous domestic brands and promote ice and snow tourism, to attract more tourists and snow sports enthusiasts to enter the "auspicious forest" and feel the charm of ice and snow.

 

Hu Yuting pointed out during his speech that the Vasaloppet China Changchun Jingyuetan International Ski Festival had been held for 23 sessions and had become a sports event, a stage of ice and snow, and a festival for the masses. During the event, the world's top skiers gather in Jilin and ventures through a forest of ski slopes to experience the charm of ice and snow and witness the highlight moments, writing a new chapter in the ice and snow sports in Jilin. As an important bearing ground for consolidating and expanding the results of the goal of "driving 300 million people to participate in ice and snow sports" as proposed by General Secretary Xi Jinping, Jilin has a galaxy of talents in ice and snow sports and carries forward the ice and snow culture from generation to generation. Withe ice and snow tourism being in the ascendant, Jilin is witnessing flourishing ice and snow industry and is speeding up building itself into a province strong in ice and snow economy. By leveraging the exceptional advantage of "powder snow and warm sunshine", we will welcome visitors from all directions, and create a world-class ice and snow tourism "destination" with the largest number of first-class ski resorts in China, the second-to-none total length of ski slopes and the largest quality ski resort. We look forward to contestants' elegant demeanor, high-level performance and stunning miracles. We welcome people from all over the world to experience Jilin's ice and snow and enjoy the thrilling competition. We hope visitors come with excitement and leave with satisfaction.

 

Since December 20, 2024, the flag of Vasaloppet has been relayed in 11 regions and 35 places in the province, and returned to the competition site today. Mats Budh, the founder of Vasaloppet China and Honorary President of the Swedish Vasaloppet Ski Association, handed the flag over to Qi Guangpu, the Olympic champion. More than 2,000 professional athletes and enthusiastic skiers from 33 countries participated in the 50km, 25km, 6km, 1.5km, and 0.3km cross-country skiing competitions, making the scale of the competition the largest in history.

 

Zhou Jinqiang, Vice President of the Chinese Olympic Committee, leaders of Changchun City including Wang Zhihou, Wang Zilian and Gao Zhiguo, Epp Paal, President of the Worldloppet Ski Federation, Gao Youyuan, President of Nordic Ways and the founder of Vasaloppet China, officials of relevant departments and bureaus of the General Administration of Sport of China and officials from relevant provincial departments, representatives of sister provinces/cities and officials of cities (prefectures) of Jilin Province, representatives of Olympic champions, some foreign diplomatic envoys to China as well as representatives of relevant international organizations, foreign business associations and foreign friends in Changchun attended the opening ceremony.