To think a Winter Olympics should have snow?

[ThinkThereShouldBeSnow]

AIBU to think that you need natural snow to host a Winter Olympics

How can an area that only receives an average of 21cm a year of snowfall be awarded the Winter Olympics?

Just the skiing venue needs 1.2 million cubic metres of snow for Olympic events.
Making artificial snow is both energy and resource-intensive. Around 222.8 million litres of water have been used to make the snow in an area that already is short of water.

I completely understand why the ROC wanted to host, but why did the Olympic committee agree?

Maybe the UK will be awarded it.

Stuff like curling, figure skating, bobsleigh... no you don't.

Nordic skiing... extremely helpful.

Fair point, so have the skiing in another country?

So on MN where posters think badly of long haul flights, people aren't worried about the impact that creating fake snow causes?

Are there any rules or could we have it in the UK?

I see your point. I don’t think the Olympic committee cares much about morals or issues. The fact that they have such ridiculously expensive opening and closing ceremonies say it all.

I think staging Winter Olympics, in a world where snow and winter are getting rarer and the climate is warming up is redundant and even obscene.

The whole Olympics model has become bloated and irrelevant. It might be time to rethink it.

@Marmm

Are there any rules or could we have it in the UK?

Well, I always thought the absence of reliable snow fall was an issue but apparently not. In fact I think some areas in Scotland get more yearly snowfall than where it is being held at the moment.

Same thing happened at Sochi and PyeongChang. I don’t get it either.

qz.com/2116950/beijing-2022-will-be-the-first-winter-olympics-using-100-percent-fake-snow/amp/

I think YANBU and I also agree with Honeyroar

The whole Olympics model has become bloated and irrelevant.

I've been thinking about this, mainly because of the lack of crashes, falls etc when watching both the winter and summer Olympics. The Olympics used to be about amateurs, now they are sports people, whose only job is to do said sport. (Appreciate not all, but Adam Peaty for example gets 30k from the lottery )

I definitely think there are some areas of the Olympics which are staggeringly out of touch. The environmental impact of this is awful & doesn't look good. Surely there is somewhere in China they could have hosted it with decent snowfall?

It's not just that, think of all the facilities that are build for the Olympics, at great cost and are now rotting away in Rio, and Athens and so on. Such a waste of money and resources.

I think it’s probably down to the temperatures- it needs to be below a certain temp for snow machines, which it probably wouldn’t reach in Scotland, so they couldn’t use snow machines if there was no natural snow..

I agree. But I have more issue with the fact that China is hosting it at all. Like any country with horrific human rights abuses hosting the summer or winter Olympics, world cups etc

Well, I always thought the absence of reliable snow fall was an issue but apparently not. In fact I think some areas in Scotland get more yearly snowfall than where it is being held at the moment. maybe it's the wrong type of snow.

Yanbu op.
It's like the elephant in the room.

It's geopolitics.

It's the same with the World Cup. It has been awarded to a country with a completely inappropriate climate so now it will take place during the main European football season (November) and disrupt all that purely to award it to Qatar.

Also remember this hypocrisy when asked by those in authority to feel guilty about your own actions.

I won't be watching Qatar either.

The next one is in Milan? Do they have snow?

Milan has ski resorts nearby tbh.

The whole Olympics model has become bloated and irrelevant.

I'd agree with this - and so seemingly do many of the traditional winter sports countries, many of whom have declined to bid for the Winter Olympics due to the cost of staging the "Event" and hosting the officials, sponsors, media etc. The actual athletes themselves are in danger of becoming a bit of an afterthought.

Oslo in Norway, St Moritz in Switzerland and Munich in Germany have previously decided against going ahead with bids - seemingly the only countries interested in hosting the winter (and summer) Games are now doing so in an attempt to raise their profiles on the international stage despite their sometimes dubious records on human rights, industrial and agricultural pollution etc.

I completely understand why the ROC wanted to host, but why did the Olympic committee agree?

Because the only other possible bidder was Almaty in Kazakhstan, which although it has natural snow, does not have anything like the infrastructure needed to stage an event like the Olympics. And because if either China or IOC had said "No" there would be no Winter Olympics, which would be a disaster for the IOC as it needs the money to justify its existence and to pay for all of the stuffed blazers and committee members who feast on the revenue generated by the athletes - some of whom are barely able to scrape the money together to compete at the required level.

@HowlingKale

Milan has ski resorts nearby tbh.

Ah ok that's ok then.

Maybe they should make "natural snow" a higher weighting when they decide

I probably sound incredibly naive but I hadn’t even realised this was happening with fake snow, wtf

This is absolutely ridiculous, and environmentally an absolute nightmare, why on earth has this been allowed??