She took her time, but she finally came to 12e competition day of these Olympic Winter Games. The snow.
We had seen it pass on the screen on the images that came to us from the mountain the day before, but we could have put it down to a brief weather accident or a bad video signal. But on Sunday morning, there was no longer any possible doubt. Beijing was covered in a thin but no less white coat, and the snow was falling even so hard at the Yanqing alpine ski venue that a women’s downhill practice had to be canceled.
Rest assured, schools didn’t have to be closed and no one should be stuck for days on snow-blocked highways. It’s just that for the Winter Games, these Beijing Games were sorely lacking in what is normally always supposed to be part of the decor.
We have already amply told how all the snow needed for the competitions had been produced artificially in these arid regions, where less than three centimeters of snow fall on average per year. Concretely, this gives ski centers where there is literally a white carpet only at the places where skiers have to pass. It’s a bit like those golf courses in the middle of the desert in Arizona, where there’s grass only where the players’ balls are supposed to land. No matter how well we understand the situation, we can’t get rid of the idea that there is something wrong.
In the capital, it was worse. Until Sunday morning, it was spring and there was no loose snow, apart from that made for the Shougang Big Jump for freestyle skiing and snowboarding, and that picked up by the Zambonis of the different ice rinks. Hard to say if our joy was shared by the Pekingese, but it was heartwarming to see them clearing the sidewalks with shovels and big brooms made of branches and their children squatting in the parks trying to hold the snow not sticky enough. . It is also difficult to say in how long this miracle will have melted away.
This is perhaps the price to pay for not holding the Winter Games always in the same small number of Nordic countries, especially in this era of global warming. Maybe one day we will solve the problem by developing recycled plastic snow as good as the real thing? But like a Christmas that wouldn’t be white, Winter Games without snow, it’s sad all the same.
This report was financed thanks to the support of the Transat-Le Devoir International Journalism Fund.