It was minus 24 on the eve of the opening of the Winter Olympic Games in Cortina D’Ampezzo, in 1956. Seventy years later, the Italian resort faces minus 4 degrees, snow that fell only in the last few days and many problems when hosting the event for the second time, starting this Friday (6). In 2050, a third edition may not be viable.
According to a study commissioned by the IOC (International Olympic Committee) and published in 2024, when the Winter Games complete one hundred years of history, less than 20 countries will be able to host the Games from mid-century onwards.
Much more sensitive to climate change than the Summer Olympics, the events played on snow and ice are experiencing an existential crisis in the face of global warming. If in 1956 it was possible to build an outdoor hockey stadium, now the only option is to keep what is possible inside a gym — already existing, according to the IOC, a recipe that was not followed by the Italian organizers.
It turns out that most winter sports can only be played in mountains, where they originate. According to research by Robert Steiger, from the University of Innsbruck, in Austria, and Daniel Scott, from the University of Waterloo, in Canada, fewer and fewer venues will be able to meet the standards required by the event.
Of 93 possible locations, 87 were “climatically reliable” to hold competitions in the reference period adopted by the study (1981-2010); 6 were “marginally reliable” and none were infeasible. In the current greenhouse gas emissions scenario, the number of reliable locations would fall to 52 headquarters in 2050 and to 46 in 2080.
In other words, more than half of ski resorts will become unviable for the sport in the second half of the century. Cortina, which shares this 25th edition of the Games with Milan and other locations, has not yet reached that point, but it has scared the Olympic authorities.
The start of winter was mild, raising concerns about an event already marked by delays, budget overruns and an environmental footprint that experts consider exaggerated. In January, however, temperatures dropped in the Dolomites, the mountain range that houses Cortina, alleviating the situation.
“We are in the hands of the gods, but we also need the resources to make snow, and the capabilities needed to do so are available,” said Johan Eliasch, the president of FIS, the federation that governs skiing and snowboarding, as snow began to fall in the region during an inspection visit last month.
Eliasch is quite vocal on the issue. In addition to being a top hat and owner of the Head sports equipment brand, he supports the NGO Cool Earth. In his frustrated campaign for the IOC presidency last year, he launched the idea of fixed headquarters at high altitudes for winter sports, with guaranteed snow and reduced costs.
In Cortina, he returned to the subject. “What is clear here is that the guarantee of snow is closely linked to the altitude of the locations,” he said. “But that’s just one part of that equation. It’s also a matter of maintaining venues, and that requires ongoing competitions.”
Frequent use, according to the director, would be guaranteed by stages of the World Cup, the annual competition for the various mountain sports. “This is much more efficient than trying to reinvent the wheel in new destinations.”
Eliasch avoided explicit mention, but the IOC went through this phase of experimentation in the last decade, admitting editions of the Games in exotic venues such as the Russian resort of Sochi, in 2014, and Beijing, in 2022, made possible by a colossal and expensive amount of artificial snow.
The resource is a mandatory practice in high-level events, as certain track conditions are required for the different disciplines – roughly speaking, 30 cm of fresh, uncompacted snow, a layer that needs to be constantly replaced if the temperature is above zero degrees, among other variables.
Melted and refrozen snow, on the other hand, turns into ice, bringing danger to the slopes, a situation that is increasingly common with global warming. In 2023, a jump in the number of race cancellations and accidents led more than 400 athletes to ask the FIS for action, as well as more transparency in climate action related to sport.
In addition to machinery, artificial snow requires large volumes of water, transportation and even storing the flakes in warehouses. Livigno, home to snowboarding and freestyle skiing this year, will use snow from the previous winter to meet the high demand for the Games.
There is no shortage of numbers indicating that the situation is unsustainable. According to the study, from the 1920s, the debut decade of the Winter Games, to the 1950s, the average maximum temperature in the venues was 0.4°C; from the 1960s to the 1990s, 3.1°C; this century, 6.3°C.
“The viability and success of the future Winter Olympic Games will depend on the international community’s fulfillment of the goals established by the Paris Agreement,” wrote the study’s authors, in a complement to the analysis published at the end of last year, on the occasion of the event in Cortina and Milan.
It remains, of course, to agree with the countries. The treaty’s global warming limit of 1.5°C at the end of the century will be exceeded at some point in the second half of 2029, according to the latest estimates. Before the next edition of the Games, in the French Alps.
