A playground of snow and ice

Winter activities have transformed Beijing Olympic Forest Park into a family-hour paradise. The enthusiasm for winter sports is great publicity for Beijing's 2022 Winter Olympics bid. Da Wei / For China Daily

Olympic fever stimulates fans of winter sports, Erik Nilsson and Yang Yang report.

Beijingers can play a real-life version of the terrorists-versus-good guys video game Counter-Strike on ice at the Bird's Nest this winter.

They can act out the first-person shooter game as a laser-tag competition while scuttling across frozen water at the iconic 2008 Beijing Olympics venue, also known as the National Stadium.

That is, if they don't instead zorb (roll inside a transparent ball) on ice or swish down "ice slides" in inner tubes. Or zip across frozen sheathes on all-terrain vehicles or snowmobiles.

Beijing's enthusiasm for winter activities is soaring as the mercury plummets, industry insiders agree.