Miriam Hanna Deller and her husband Wang Lei. The pair run a thriving media business in Beijing. Mark Graham / for China Daily

Love blossoms for snow-bound pair

Snow sports have always been a major part of Miriam Hanna Deller's life. In the small Austrian alpine village where she grew up, almost everyone skied, snowboarded or tobogganed in the winter months. That expertise later helped her land a job in China, where she met and later married the nation's best known snowboarder, Wang Lei, a former child gymnast and top-level skier.

Deller still marvels at how marketing work for a snowboard-equipment company led her to Beijing, where, during the course of her work, she met Wang.

The pair, who now have a baby boy, Marvin, jointly run a thriving media business, Core Power Asia, which is involved with marketing, advertising, public relations and events. Naturally, much of the focus of the business is on snowboarding and skiing, along with skateboarding and surfing.

"I feel lucky to have seen so many sides of life, first a small village, then Vienna and now Beijing," Deller says. "I grew up in Grobming, a village in the middle of Austria, and later in my teen years moved to Vienna to take courses in Asian studies and Chinese.

"I was fascinated by China from a young age. When I was a kid, I picked out the mountains of Guilin in a copy of National Geographic magazine and told my dad I wanted to go there and he laughed, but it stuck in my mind.

"On my first trip here I did the tourist thing in a guided way, the trip was a reward from my mom for good exam grades, and I realized just what a huge country it is. We did Beijing, Shanghai and Guilin - and two weeks later when I came back with my backpack, I had fallen in love with it."

After that trip, Deller returned to Austria but it was not long before China came calling again. An Austrian brand offered her a job in Beijing, where she came into contact with people in the snowboarding world, including Wang.

The two worked on events together and became firm friends. Romance soon blossomed and the pair later married; Marvin came along early this year.

"I thought he was an extremely kind and thoughtful person and an easy-going guy," Deller says. "My job was to market the team and it was important to have people who want to work with you - and he did. We went out for dinner and realized that something was happening."

The couple both come from mountainous regions where skiing is a popular pastime.

But Wang's route to becoming a professional snowboarder was rather circuitous: as a 7-year-old, he was selected to join one of China's notoriously tough gymnastic training schools.

Later, officers from the army ski team picked Wang as a child with potential to become a top ski-jumper.

Their judgment proved to be astute. Wang turned into a valuable member of the ski-jumping team until a severe injury curtailed his career. A jump on late-season snow went horribly wrong; Wang landed awkwardly and caught his arm in railings.

Emergency surgery saved the arm but ended any hopes of making a career out of ski jumping. Instead, Wang became a ski instructor, working in various resorts in China, where he came across the then-novel sport of snowboarding.

After a couple of hesitant sessions on a board, Wang realized that the arm injury did not inhibit his performance. A career was born - he excelled at the sport and soon became the nation's top practitioner, appearing in competitions and exhibitions.

The affable Wang has icon status with young snowboarders, admired for his rock-star aura and easy confidence. The athlete's good looks, fluent English and total commitment to the sport have not done any harm in attracting sponsors such as Burton, one of the biggest equipment manufacturers.

A major chunk of Wang's time is on promotional work, traveling to resorts around the north of China and passing on skill tips to young, and keen, snowboarders.

"I think snowboarding will grow and grow in China, and the resorts will get much better," he says. "It is popular with the new rich - it is still quite an expensive sport, you do need money. I would say there are 10,000 to 15,000 snowboarders who are serious. Every year it is going up and up, growing by 30 percent a year."

"There are a lot of young kids coming through and we use a lot of technology to help them and guide them. Some kids as young as 13 and 14 are really good and can compete on a high level at the global level. I am helping ski resorts with their development, setting up schools so people can learn it easily and safely."

Wang has also become something of a movie star through the film I Love to Ride, produced by CCTV5 in cooperation with his production company. Another film, Go Snowboarding, out on DVD, showcases his skills, as does the recently published photo book A Decade of Snowboarding in China. He has also taken part in snowboarding events in the United States, New Zealand and Switzerland.

Home is Beijing, which has a number of winter resorts located within easy reach and, slightly further away, the more testing mountain ranges of Hebei province. During winter months, Wang also travels to resorts in the northeast, and in northwestern Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region, and accepts commissions for private lessons.

"The whole lifestyle of snowboarding with its music and fashion are attracting more and more people," he says. "I have always been passionate about the sport and that has always kept me going."

Now he is a father, daredevil Wang has cut back on the more extreme tricks and makes sure to always wear a helmet. But he is a sportsman who loves a challenge. During the summer season, Wang can be found horse-riding, windsurfing, wake-boarding or kite-surfing.

The only sport he cannot master is golf. The ski-jump injury to Wang's left arm makes it difficult to hold a club properly; neck pains from the same fall also recur regularly. Not that the cheery Wang is an individual who is given to complaining much - he did not mention the injuries to Deller until long after they met.

"I found out by chance one day," Deller says. "We had been on the slopes and he had been treating me like a queen all day, really looking after me. At one point my binding was broken and he gave me a screwdriver to fix it. I thought this is weird - why doesn't he do it?

"Then I realized later that he couldn't fix it because of his injury. He told me the whole thing one evening in a bar. He is determined and brave. I have never heard him complain."

For China Daily

(China Daily 06/29/2012 page29)