Special Olympics China is holding two month-long winter sports camps in Qingdao, Shandong province in eastern China. The athletes are training in snowshoeing, floor hockey, snowboarding, speed skating, figure skating and cross country skiing in preparation for the 2005 Special Olympics World Winter Games pre-Games in Nagano, Japan. A total of 60 athletes are living and training at centers in Harbin, Heilongjiang province and Qingdao, Shandong province in preparation for the Games. This training camp model allows athletes unfamiliar with winter sports the opportunity to further their training and build friendships with other athletes selected for the national delegation traveling to the World Winter Games. The training camps, in addition to the Special Olympics China delegation traveling to Nagano for the pre-Games, were sponsored in large part by the Very Special Christmas Gala fundraising event held in December in Beijing.