Skater-turned-shoemaker establishes start-up producing tailor-made skates for professional Chinese athletes

Wang Yang inspects an ice skate blade. (Photo/Chinanews.com)

"I could not compete in the Olympics in person. I hope that Chinese athletes who wear the skates or ice skate blades that I make for them can take home gold medals," said Wang Yang, a skates shoemaker who used to be a short-track speed skater.

Wang, who was born in 1983, started to learn skating at an age of 7. In 2001, he became a professional skater in Changchun, northeast China's Jilin Province. Four years later, while preparing for the Torino Winter Olympic Games after being recruited to the national team, Wang unfortunately got injured, which forced him to retire early.

Wang came up with the idea of producing skating boots customized for Chinese athletes following his retirement. "When I was an athlete, I tried on the skates of many foreign brands, but I found that they were in fact not a good match for the foot shape of Chinese people," Wang recalled.

In a bid to put his idea into practice, Wang looked up the relevant information on the Internet, taught himself the process for making skates, and then bought a sewing machine to hone his sewing skills. Meanwhile, Wang repeatedly compared the raw materials used in the skates, including the leather used in the shoe's upper section, in addition to sewing threads, shoelaces, and shoelace buckles he gathered from factories all over the country, striving to single out the most suitable ones for his skating shoes.

Wang Yang sews together the upper section of a skating boot. (Photo/Chinanews.com)

In 2010, Wang even spent all his savings as a down payment to purchase an Australian skate brand. Afterwards, Wang often slept a mere four or five hours a day, striving to learn the professional skills needed for producing ice skate blades.

Wang's efforts gradually paid off – his skating shoes customized for Zhang Hong helped the athlete to win the first ever speed skating Olympic gold medal for China at the Sochi 2014 Winter Olympic Games.

Currently, Wang runs a processing plant covering an area of more than 3,000 square meters that expanded from a small workshop of only 50 square meters. The plant produces about 10,000 pairs of skates, of which 500 pairs are customized specifically for professional athletes.

The skates and ice skate blades manufactured by Wang have not only gained a rising degree of popularity in the domestic market, but have also been exported to the Netherlands, France, Britain, Belgium, Austria, Russia, Japan, South Korea and other countries. "In recent years, some customers from Southeast Asia have also ordered products from me," Wang revealed.

With the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games approaching, Wang set aside the production of skates for amateur skaters in the summer of 2021 and committed himself fully to the development of tailor-made equipment for skaters participating in the Olympics.

"Professional athletes have a higher demand for the accuracy of skating equipment, and even one small defect in products can affect their performance," said Wang.