With climate change, the Winter Olympics, the 2022 edition of which takes place in Beijing (February 4-22), are increasingly threatened.
“The risk is clear: warming caused by human activities threatens the long-term future of winter sports, warns a recent report produced by researchers from the Sport Ecology Group of the English University of Loughborough and the Protect association. Our Winters. It also reduces the number of venues suitable for winter Olympics.
This document takes as an example the Winter Olympics scheduled for February 4 to 20 in Beijing, which will be the first to depend largely on artificial snow.
Fake snow in Beijing
“The 2022 Winter Games will undoubtedly be an awe-inspiring spectacle, which millions of people around the world will watch and enjoy. But they should also spark debate about the future of the Winter Games and the limits of making artificial natural environments.”
According to the report, more than 100 snow generators and 300 snow cannons will work tirelessly to cover the ski slopes with fake snow.
This process is energy-intensive and water-intensive, and requires the use of chemicals to slow the melting of the snow, the authors point out. It also makes surfaces unpredictable and potentially dangerous, according to many competitors.
Of the 21 sites that have hosted the Winter Games since Chamonix in 1924, only ten by 2050 could still be suitable for hosting such an event, with sufficient natural snowfall.
Chamonix as well as other sites in France, Norway and Austria are now classified as “high risk”, while Vancouver, Sochi and the Squaw Valley in the United States are deemed “unreliable”.