Alternatieve Elfstedentocht in China
Bīng xī: writes in SPORT IN ANCIENT CHINA: "ice-skating was once a warriors’ art. Manchu men needed to master the skill to move 350 kilometres in a single day to get to their enemies." This is a distance that is longer than the Elfstedentocht in the Netherlands (200km) and this happened in the 18th century. I could not detect what type of skates they used for these distance but it seems quite an effort also now with the present skates.
The emperor of the Qing dynasty, Qianlong, reigned from 1711 till 1799. His real name was Hongli but is was a costum that the emperor used the emperor´s name Qianlong and not his own name.
When his army concered China and came to Beiijng he declared ice skating as a traditional sport. Each winter 200 proficient ice-skaters were selected to perform on the frozen royal lake for the court. Skaters would wear knee pads and secure their shoes with leather, shoes fitted with single iron blades for speed or double blades for security. Competitions for figure skating, ice acrobatics and speed skating were also held for the benefit of the royal family." A beatiful painting of this event can be found in the Palace museum in Beijing. A part of the painting is shown below in the video. This video also tell that the performance for the Royal family is now still organized but now all people can see it.
The emperor of the Qing dynasty, Qianlong, reigned from 1711 till 1799. His real name was Hongli but is was a costum that the emperor used the emperor´s name Qianlong and not his own name.
When his army concered China and came to Beiijng he declared ice skating as a traditional sport. Each winter 200 proficient ice-skaters were selected to perform on the frozen royal lake for the court. Skaters would wear knee pads and secure their shoes with leather, shoes fitted with single iron blades for speed or double blades for security. Competitions for figure skating, ice acrobatics and speed skating were also held for the benefit of the royal family." A beatiful painting of this event can be found in the Palace museum in Beijing. A part of the painting is shown below in the video. This video also tell that the performance for the Royal family is now still organized but now all people can see it.
Although this ice skating festival continued as a performance there is little known about skating of the general public. Since 1963 there is a famous Ice scupture festival in Harbin where the most fantastic structures are created out of ice and illuminated by different lights. More recently China started with succes to participate in international skating championships in figure skating.
Again a few years later, at the beginning of this century, Chinese skaters became succesfull in longtrack speed skating, especially on the short distances for women. The center for all these ice activities is Harbin in the North of China. Below is a video of one of the championships that happened in Harbin. Also in this championship the Chinese women were succesful.
The Alternatieve Elfstedentocht in China
Ofcourse nobody in China knew anaything about the Elfstedentocht which the Dutch people like so much. So it was the Dutchman Daniel Rooyackers who detected the possibility to organize an alternatieve Elfstedentocht in China. He detected that after the dam was built in the yellow river (Yangtze) that there were very good possibilities to organize a skating tour on this river in the area where the river passes close to the Chinese Wall. So in 2014 he organized the first Alternative Elfstedentocht in China. A short report of this tour can be seen below. You will see that the local population did its best to make a nice event of the visit of the Dutch skaters. For the Dutch skaters it looks like any other skating tour. However as soon as they are going to skate one can see that they are in a very special surrounding. Where they are skating, the river is 500meters wide and the ice is very good. The facilities in this rural area are very simple. The population is very poor. There are no tourist hotels. The participants sleep in cave houses without showers but the population is very helpful because this is a chance of extra income for the area.
The majority of participants skated 200km in two days. So it is not a real "Alternatieve Elfstedentocht". The facilities, like the tables for control also need some adaptation as the video shows. Overall the participants enjoyed the tour and the organization decided to organize the tour again in 2015 while I have also seen the announcement of the tour for 2016..