Olympic Snow Snobbery

It's been interesting watching social media feeds the past couple of days and all of the comments about the snow conditions at the Yanqing Alpine Venue in Beijing. 

The lack of natural snow at the venue, which is consistent with the dry wintertime climate of the region, has very much highlighted the role of artificial snowmaking in the Olympics.  

However, claims like the one below that there's something unusual about the snow surface and that it is a problem for Alpine ski racing are simply not accurate.  

The reality is that Alpine ski racers prefer a hard, icy, durable snow surface.  In a recent study, athletes and coaches were asked to rate the influence of 23 weather/snow conditions on performance, fairness, safety, and overall impact on a scale from ideal to unacceptable.  Conditions rated closest to ideal were hardpack snow, injected surface (this typically means a snow surface injected with water, which freezes and makes it harder), ice, and machine-made snow.  Fresh Powder?  It ranks amongst the most unacceptable snow conditions.  

Source: Scott et al. (2022)

Hard, icy snow is challenging and durable.  It holds up well to the onslaught of skiers who are carving ruts along a very similar track.  Soft courses deteriorate into rutty, unfair, and sometimes dangerous conditions very quickly.  

Once a course is prepared, natural snow is a detriment to skiing.  If it snows at a world cup or Olympic race, efforts are made to remove it from the course, exposing the old hard surface.  

World Cup racers are used to skiing on hard, icy snow and on artificial snow.  Snow is a very complex substance, so exactly how a snow surface feels is going to depend on many factors and how the course is prepped, the weather, etc.  Some skiers probably like the texture of artificial snow less than others, but the snow surface in Beijing has gotten solid reviews from experts and from racers.  Here are two examples.

"I am not a specialist for snow making, I'm a course designer, but what I can tell you is that the snow we find right now on the courses is absolutely perfect. You can not have it better."

- Bernhard Russi, Olympic Gold Medalist and Course Designer

"The snow surface is perfect really." 

- US Alpine Skier AJ Hurt

There are a lot of things that bother me about having the Olympics in Beijing and the construction on the Yanqing Alpine Center.  I was there in 2018 when it was under construction.  It was an environmental tragedy as they were transforming an otherwise undeveloped area.  Snowmaking has environmental impacts too.  However, artificial snow is not a problem for Alpine ski racing and in many ways it is better than many natural snow surfaces.  The snow surface at Yanqing appears to be just what Olympic snow snobs are looking for.