'Ice Cube' is curling's coolest hot spot

Venue becomes sport's new base in China after wowing world at Beijing 2022

Proving a huge success as a double-duty Olympic venue, the National Aquatics Center, aka the "Ice Cube", during the Winter Games, will continue to drive curling's growth in China beyond Beijing 2022.

Keen to build on the buzz generated by the 19-day Olympic program, a new three-party agreement signed on Friday will focus energies on promoting the sport in China after the Games.

The World Curling Federation, the Chinese Curling Association and Beijing State-owned Assets Management Co, owner of the Ice Cube, will introduce more international events to the venue and jointly develop a World Curling Academy Training Center at a facility used for training at the Olympics.

Programs to train more event operations staff and curling coaches with input from the WCF will also be launched in China and hosted by the aquatics center, according to Kate Caithness, president of the WCF.

"China has the potential to be one of the biggest curling nations in the world and the coaches and officials who will be trained at this center will help build and promote the foundations of that growth," Caithness said during the agreement signing ceremony at the aquatics center on Friday.

"The confirmation of this new facility as a World Curling Academy Training Center is the key and I very much applaud the commitment of our Chinese partners to sign this deal."

Built for swimming, diving and water polo at the 2008 Summer Games, the aquatics center, known as the "Water Cube" back then, was transformed into a curling venue for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games－an innovative undertaking that involved filling the pool with retractable steel structures.

The whole transformation is reversible, turning the center into a multifunctional facility.

As one of six 2008 projects in downtown Beijing repurposed to host competition and non-competition events at Beijing 2022, the Ice Cube has earned huge praise from the world's athletes at the Winter Games.