2024-02-19 05:05:56
By the middle of the century, only 10 countries in the world will be able to host competitions that require cold temperatures and the presence of snow
The hosts are neat, the spectators are loud, the competitors are perfectly prepared. All involved are extremely motivated to turn the event into a celebration of sport. And just then a torrential rain falls. Nature, like the evil orisnica, which was not invited to the party, decided to intervene and thwart the holding of the slalom of the Alpine Skiing World Cup in Bansko.
Albert Popov and company are disappointed by the unfavorable weather conditions, but praise our resort for the perfect preparation of the tracks during the other competitions. The world’s best skiers are now beginning to realize that rainy days in the middle of winter will no longer be just bad luck. And something much more unpleasant is yet to come. The world’s climate is changing unstoppably, and we have apparently proved unable to stop the processes that in the coming decades will confront all living organisms with the choice of adapting or disappearing from the face of the Earth. Against the background of the apocalyptic future, which only the next (probable) president of the USA, Donald Trump, mocks ironically, it is unlikely that the lack of winter sports will be the biggest problem. Yet it exists and will force skiers, biathletes, snowboarders or ski jumpers to look for other hobbies for the time between December and March. The largest mountain resorts in Europe, but also in other places in the world suffer from a chronic lack of snow, and within 10 – 20 years the slopes will be completely bare. Modern technology will also be helpless in the face of the consequences of global warming. Snow machines and tons of chemicals don’t help when the temperatures outside are spring-like. Even the greatest amateurs do not like to drive on artificial slush, what to say about holding competitions. The bosses of world sports, contrary to Trump, believed the scientists, but so far they have not come up with concrete measures to save the alpine skiing disciplines, the biathlon and the other most popular outdoor winter sports. Last year, the International Olympic Committee was even forced to postpone the selection of a host country for the 2030 Winter Olympics while they wondered what to do. Because according to the most optimistic forecasts, in 15 years, only 10-12 countries in the world will be able to hope that there will still be some snow on the mountains of their territory to hold competitions of the highest rank.
“We need to address this dramatic impact of climate change on winter sports very quickly,” IOC president Thomas Bach said at the organization’s 141st session in Mumbai last October. He assigns his team the task of coming up with a plan to save the Winter Olympics, which are celebrating their 100th anniversary this year. It turns out that there are not many options.
The most discussed proposal is to split the next Winter Olympics between countries where it will continue to rain and snow during the winter. However, this option requires substantial funding, and the IOC complain that their bank accounts are stretched thin. Among other possibilities is to give priority to sports that take place in a hall. And indeed, hockey, short track or curling can be calm about their future. Indoors, the machines will do their job perfectly and provide enough cold and ice. A third option is to include outdoor sports in the program, which, however, do not necessarily require the presence of natural or artificial snow cover. The Olympic Committee has already tried a similar trick, after in 2021, at its meeting, they included ski mountaineering in the program. It’s an up and down natural mountain route race that can be practiced at any time of the year, but will be pushed as winter fun.
However, favoring such competitions at the expense of alpine ski disciplines does not seem like a good decision at all, considering how many people in the world, firstly, practice them and secondly, watch them on television. And with nature dying for viewership, advertisers and television rights, the bosses of the white caravan will have to concentrate the races only and only in the resorts where they will hope for the most snow in winter. The rest will have to be rescued individually.
Many of the respected ski resorts of the Old Continent are already thinking about a future in which they will develop another type of tourism and attract their guests with attractive walks in the forest, warm pools and saunas in the hotels and all kinds of other activities to somehow blind the eyes of yesterday’s skiers and snowboarders.
According to the biggest pessimists, the next Winter Olympics in the Italian resort of Cortina d’Ampezzo in 2026 could be the last to be held under the current format. For after that, living flesh will have to be cut, and no one is capable of stopping the change. But as already discussed, with the (expected) return of Trump, America’s disdain for any climate agreements will also return, and this will incentivize the other major players to also not fulfill their part of the bargain. So the planet will continue to warm, and yesterday’s fans of the furious descent on the snow-covered slope, it is not a bad idea to start reorienting to water skiing from now on. Yes, it is completely different, but they will still have some reason to brag to relatives and friends that they have been “skiing”.