Something unprecedented will happen at the Beijing Olympic Games in February. Well, they will be the first Winter Olympics to be held on 100 per cent artificial snow. The Beijing Olympic Games open on February 4.
Around 100 snow generators and 300 snow-making guns are engaged in covering the ski slopes of the 2022 Winter Olympics in artificial snow.
According to scientists, of the 21 venues used for the Winter Games since Chamonix 1924, only 10 will have the 'climate suitability' and natural snowfall levels to host an event by 2050.
The report 'Slippery Slopes: How Climate Change is threatening the 2022 Winter Olympics' criticises the use of fake snow. It says that crisp slopes outside Beijing mask an unfortunate truth: they will be the result of an estimated 49 million gallons of chemically treated water, frozen through snow-machines, an energy-intensive process that is costly and potentially damaging in winter stress areas.
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"This is not only energy and water-intensive, but frequently using chemicals to slow melt also delivers a surface that many competitors say is unpredictable and potentially dangerous."
The report has been brought out by the Sport Ecology Group at Loughborough University and Save Our Winters. It is based on inputs from leading skiers, snowboarders, and bobsledders on their fears for the future of snow sports as climate changes, a release said.
Climate change is to be blamed for threatening the Winter Olympics and the future of snow sports by making conditions much more dangerous to athletes and participants.
Chamonix, the ski-resort in France which hosted Winter Olympics in 1924, is now rated 'high risk' along with venues in Norway, France, and Austria, while Vancouver, Sochi, and Squaw Valley in the US are deemed 'unreliable'.
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Expressing her fears, Scottish freestyle skier, Laura Donaldson said, "If freestyle super pipes are formed from snow-making machines in a poor (natural snow) season, the walls of the pipe are solid, vertical ice and the pipe floor is solid ice. This is dangerous for athletes, some have died."
Two-time Canadian Olympian and leading freestyle skier, Philippe Marquis talked about the "scary changes in the basic structure of ice formation and the landscape of glaciers" he had seen in recent years.
The sportsman highlighted the increasing number of injuries caused by the lack of practice on snow. "The conditions are definitely more dangerous than what we've seen before," he said.
The report stated, "Navigating erratic snow seasons and rapid melt of low-level resorts are now the norms for many competitors. The risk is clear: man-made warming is threatening the long-term future of winter sports. It is also reducing the number of climatically suitable host venues for the Winter Olympiad."
'Protect Our Winters' UK Ambassador Lesley McKenna who is also a three-time GB Olympian in snowboard halfpipe said, "I have seen huge changes in the snowpack in ski resorts over the winters and especially in glacier cover or condition in those 30 years and the changes are hugely concerning on many levels."
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