China's biggest skiing resort Yabuli, which is busy preparing for next year's winter universiade, met knotty problems to deal with for National Winter Games to be opened on Friday.

 

To get along with local freezing temperature which drops to nearly 30 degree below zero at night, many athletes and journalists arrived three or four days ahead of China's 11th Winter Games commencement at Yabuli skiing resort in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province.

 

They have found a tougher issue than cold in their rooms where tap water is not available in daytime and they have to use public bathroom on each floor.

 

Buildings under construction could be seen everywhere in the resort. Journalists and athletes were mixed in a temporary building for accommodation since all of the hotels of the resort have been either under construction or interior decoration.

 

More than 1,000 athletes, journalists and officials made the building so crowded that Chinese snowboard national team was rearranged out to a local private-owned hotel.

 

Safe food supplying bases prepared for the universiade have not been put in use and the food supply for the National Winter Games rely fully on transportation from Harbin, Heilongjiang Province. Dining time of each meal has been limited to just one hour.

 

Harbin won a bid for the 24th World University Games in 2005 and the Yabuli skiing resort, 200 kilometers away from Harbin, was assigned to hold the skiing disciplines. To meet the need of the universiade, the resort has launched series of reconstruction and other upgrading works. However, obviously it has not given enough attention to another commitment of National Winter Games before completion.

 

According to the reconstruction plan for the universiade, one of the two reservoirs for the skiing resort has been pumped empty to be enlarged, water in the other one has been used up to create skiing track snows for the upcoming National Winter Games.

 

"In the past two months, we have used the water in the reservoir to create manmade snow," Cai Xueli, a press official with the organizing committee of National Winter Games, told Xinhua, "there has been little rain and snow fall this winter, so the reservoir could not store up enough water."

 

The organizing committee has carried out an emergency plan to cope with the water supply shortage. Every water well near the skiing resort has been used to pump water as much as it could supply and two fire engines belong to local forest police have been mobiled to pump water to the buildings where games participants and journalists live.

 

On Thursday, the committee has also called another five fire engines from Harbin to join in the water supply team, making hot water for shower available from 7 to 10 o'clock at night.

 

Officials with the committee have kept explaining and comforting complaining journalists and asked them to understand the current situation was resulted by the preparation for the universiade one year later which seems to be more important than the National Winter Games to be on stage tomorrow.

 

According to the blueprint of the universiade preparation, after the completion of reconstruction the two reservoirs could provide a living water supply of about 250 thousand cubic meters. In another word, they could support 25,000 people's living for 50 days with a daily water consumption of 5,000 cubic meters.

 

And all the hotels under construction or decoration would be able to accept five to six thousand people to live, according to the blueprint.

 

"The Yabuli resort will have the ability to hold Winter Olympics with this capacity," Cai said.

 

The committee has told the press the preparation for the universiade has also bring advantages to the National Winter Games, since all the facilities for competition have been recognized by International Ski Federation.

 

Moreover, transportation improvements have also benefit the National Winter Games participants before the universiade.

 

To shorten the transportation time, a special railway connecting Yabuli resort to Harbin has been completed last December which reduce the traveling time from about five hours to just two hours.

 

Another piece of good news came just before the National Winter Games that six local hotels around the skiing resort have been persuaded to accept athletes which releases accommodation pressure in the temporary buildings.

 

"We can not guarantee a 24-hour water supply, but can guarantee that the committee will do everything we can to meet everyone's need," Cai said.

 

The vice director of Heilongjiang Provincial Sports Administration Guo Mingyu said in a reception held on Thursday evening that he appreciate journalist and athlete's cooperation and understanding to the problems occurred and again promised the province will provide a much better service in the universiade one year later.

 

(Xinhua News Agency January 18, 2008)