A new report from Britain’s Loughborough University has shown that the future of the Winter Olympics is under threat because of the increasing wave of climate change.
The warning comes as Beijing prepares for the opening of the 2022 Games this week. This will be the first time a city has hosted both the summer and winter events.
This will also be the first Winter Olympics to use almost 100% artificial snow, with more than 100 snow generators and 300 snow-cannons working to cover the slopes. Zhangjiakou, which lies 200 kilometres northwest of Beijing, is expected to host freestyle skiing and snowboarding, cross-country skiing and ski jumping.
The report however revealed that despite the bitter cold – temperatures reached minus 17 degrees Celsius this week – it rarely snows.
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According to Olympic site manager Jacques Fournier, who oversees the snow machines, “Here has no humidity, and it’s very dry, and there’s a lot of wind,” Fournier told Reuters”. “So, in that kind of condition, the goal and the target is really to make the snow compact, and to prepare rapidly to not let it [be blown away] by the wind.”
While Winter resorts have increasingly turned to artificial snow to make up for a lack of natural snowfall, a new report from Britain’s Loughborough University warns that athletes’ safety could be at risk.
“In sports like biathlon or cross-country skiing or any of the freestyle events where an athlete is flinging themself into the air flipping around and falling, you would want the surface to be a little softer” the University said. “And the problem with artificial snow is that it’s about 70% ice, compared to natural snow which is about 30% ice”.
Story was adapted from VOA.
