THE Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics involved not only athletic competitions at the highest levels, but the competition between equipment makers behind the scenes. European makers of professional gear and equipment found their presence at the venues in Beijing a rewarding business.

Maurizio Tedesco, who works at the public relations department of Italian equipment maker Leitner, said that for companies like Leitner, the Olympics can be a “shop window to the world.”

With a history of 134 years, Leitner is a major manufacturer of snow groomers, ski lifts, and funiculars. In 2019, it won a bidding process to supply a fleet of snow groomers for the Beijing Olympics. Those vehicles are used on the slopes at the games.

Other Italian companies with important roles in the Beijing Winter Olympics include TechnoAlpin, which provides machines to make artificial snow, and iconic fashion brand Giorgio Armani, which produced the uniforms for the Italian team.

German company Schneestern participated in the design and build-up work of a snow Great Wall-shaped track for slopestyle events in Genting Snow Park at Zhangjiakou, as well as the Big Air Shougang in Beijing, the venue for the Big Air competitions.

“I’m still overwhelmed that we’ve made it this far with our sport,” Dirk Scheumann, the company’s founder and a former freeskier, told German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung.

As more Chinese are taking to the slopes, European nations see ample opportunities to attract mass tourists and winter sports enthusiasts to their renowned ski resorts, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic’s heavy blow on tourism worldwide.

Even after the glare of this year’s Winter Olympics subsides, European experts and business insiders expect a vast terrain ahead, saying China’s further involvement in winter sports will inject fresh momentum into long-term cooperation between Europe and China. (Xinhua)