The International Olympic Committee (IOC) conducted this week a five-day inspection of Beijing and Zhangjiakou as part of its assessment if China would be worthy of being awarded the honor of hosting the 2022 Winter Olympics. Beijing's competition for the hosting stint is Almaty in Kazakhstan.

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While skiing is beginning to attract Chinese, especially as a growing number of them have improved their income in the past few years, Beijing sees its hosting of the winter games, if the IOC selects it, as the best way to promote skiing in the country which has abundance of snow during winter.

Since it is still considered a luxury in China, only about 10 million Chinese are into the sport or just 1 percent of the country's 1-billion plus population, according to the China Ski Association. In the next few years, with the help of the 2022 Winter Olympics, the association hopes to see the numbers jump to 300 million, reports the Wall Street Journal.

To convince the IOC that Beijing and Zhangjiakou deserve to be awarded the hosting, China had tapped Malaysia's Genting Bhd. to construct the country's largest ski resort in the unknown and poor Chinese city, featuring 87 runs and a lot of apartments.

As a result of skiing being promoted as the "in" sport, it has replaced golf as the new hobby of the country's wealthy people. At least three known Chinese tech pioneers are also ski enthusiasts as well. They are Lei Jun, founder of phonemaker Xiaomi; Robi Li, founder of Chinese search engine Baidu; and Gary Wang, founder of online video site Tudou and the Light Chase Animation Studio.

The IOC is scheduled to announce its choice for the host city on July 31 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. If Beijing gets the IOC nod, it would become the first city to host a summer and winter game. But Beijing's bid could be hampered by the city's air pollution problem, reports Ukraine Today.

Tags2022 Winter Olympics, IOC, skiing