China's veteran skating pair create play on ice

(9 Feb 2022) FOR CLEAN VERSION SEE STORY NUMBER: 4365201

They won silver at the 2010 Winter Olympics and now they're teaching a new generation of Chinese youngsters how to excel at figure skating.
Husband and wife Tong Jian and Pang Qing, now retired, are putting their students through final rehearsals for a theatre on ice drama called "We Are One".
Featuring almost 50 skaters, the youngest just six years old, the show tells a story of skaters learning persistence and teamwork, and how to compete.
"We Are One" features dialogue as well as the ice-skating action.
"In previous shows, the audience got to appreciate the beauty of figure skating through the physical performance. This time, there is not only that kind of skill, but also the storytelling, which is a particularly big challenge. Even now, I often forget my lines. Although we have so much professional experience, it is also a very big challenge," Tong explains.
Tong and Pang competed as a figure skating pair for many years, winning the world championship twice, and clinching their Olympic silver in Vancouver. Now they run their own skating training centre in Beijing.
They see the Beijing Winter Olympics as a chance to promote their sport, as well as a turning point for the new generation that is benefiting from China's prosperity.
"Our coaches' generation, and our generation, we all had a lack of resources. But now, with the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics we've got the venues and the logistics, like the technology and medical care. So, we can see what a big change there has been since China started to reform and open up - from a very undeveloped country," Tong says.
The ice theatre drama "We Are One" has been in rehearsal for months at Tong and Pang's ice skating school and will soon move to an ice stage built inside the Tianqiao Theatre in central Beijing for real performances, from 11-13 February.
Chinese authorities set a target of getting 300 million people involved in winter sports by hosting the Winter Olympics, and project that the country's winter sport industry will be worth one trillion Yuan (approximately 157 billion USD) by 2025.

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