With an extensive display of local culture and a spectacle of high-tech visuals, a stunning gala captured the imagination on Friday night as President Xi Jinping announced the opening of the 9th Asian Winter Games in Harbin, Heilongjiang province.

Almost three decades after hosting the multisports event for the first time in 1996, Harbin, the provincial capital, is providing a bigger and better encore by setting a higher-standard, more inclusive stage for Asia's best winter sports talent. The athletes, from established champions to emerging newcomers, will compete on ice and snow while sharing friendship in Northeast China's "Ice City".

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Following the opening performance, which saw 34 children, representing the 34 delegations, light a giant ice lantern together to symbolize Asian unity, Xi announced that the Games, which feature the highest participation ever, were officially underway.

As digital fireworks wowed the 8,000 spectators at the Harbin International Conference, Exhibition and Sports Center, which was the ceremony's main venue, real fireworks lit up the sky above Harbin Ice and Snow World, the show's outdoor secondary venue.

A record number of 1,275 athletes have signed up to compete in Harbin in 64 medal events across six sports — skating, ice hockey, curling, skiing, biathlon and ski mountaineering.

With a giant floor screen lighting the way, the parade of athletes proceeded to the melody of Ice, Snow and Asia, played to the inspiring beat of traditional instruments from across Asia, as delegations marched onto the stage under glittering clouds of suspended silver snowflakes.

During the parade, images of Harbin's scenic mountains and rivers, its iconic ice sculptures and its city flower, the lilac, were projected onto the background screen, allowing visiting athletes and spectators to enjoy the host city's characteristics in an immersive way.

Liang Huiling, president of the 9th Asian Winter Games Harbin Organizing Committee and governor of Heilongjiang, extended her warm welcome to visiting athletes and delegation officials, taking pride in reuniting Asia's best winter sports athletes in Harbin once again.

"Twenty nine years ago, the flame of the Asian Winter Games ignited this city's passion and dream for ice and snow. Today, we are here to jointly witness Harbin become a dual-Winter Asiad city as a continuation of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics' legacy," she said.

That legacy has encouraged 300 million Chinese to participate in winter sports, added Liang.

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A three-part artistic performance, enhanced by technologies such as virtual reality and glasses-free 3D animation, captured the crowd's imagination with breathtaking projections depicting traditional Harbin images, such as ice harvesting from the frozen Songhua River, and the city's fairytale winter scenes of snow-laden branches glistening like jade amid swirling snowflakes.

Wearing costumes with lights attached, performers on roller skates and junior athletes skating on a real ice track glided onto the stage to depict enthusiastic participation in winter sports in Harbin, a renowned training base for China's ice and snow sports talent.

International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach, who also attended the opening show of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, said the Harbin event would surely exceed expectations.

"Knowing the expertise of the people of Harbin and of China in organizing great sporting events, the expectations are very high. As I know, China will even exceed these high expectations," he told Xinhua News Agency before the ceremony.

Impressed by the expansion of winter sports across Asia, Bach hailed the impact of Beijing 2022 and Harbin 2025 as a game-changer for ice and snow sports worldwide.

"The Games is part of the legacy (of Beijing 2022), and the development in winter sports in China is just breathtaking," said Bach, who will step down from the IOC after his second term expires next month.

"You could see winter sport athletes from Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia (in Harbin). And in these countries, this excitement for winter sport is growing. This is how it should be, benefiting from this great legacy of Beijing 2022," he added.

For the exciting finale, a group of children holding ice lanterns skated to the center of the outdoor Ice and Snow World to jointly ignite the Games' cauldron with Zhang Hong, who won China's first speed skating Olympic gold medal at Sochi, Russia, in 2014.

The glow of lanterns and the flame of the Winter Asiad lit up the freezing night in Harbin as the cauldron, named the "Bloom of Ice Lilac", brought vigor and warmth.