Fragile by definition because exposed to climatic hazards for snow events, prey to the reluctance of potential candidates for their organization, the Winter Olympics must evolve to last, even survive, warn experts.
Storm warning (and heat stroke) for the Winter Olympics! According to a study by the Canadian University of Waterloo, published in mid-January, the average temperature in February in the host cities of the Winter Olympics rose from +0.4°C for the period 1920-1960 to +3, 1°C between 1960 and 2000 and at +6.3°C since the beginning of the new millennium.
If the current context of global warming continues, it would be necessary to add to the average temperature observed in February in the 21 cities that have hosted the Winter Olympics since 1924 1.9°C by the 2050s and 2.7°C C by the 2080s.
Consequently, warn the Canadian, American and Austrian academics who took part in this study, if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced in such a way as to reach the objectives of the Paris agreement, at the end of the century, a only of the 21 former host cities, Sapporo, in Japan, would have enough reliable conditions to host the Winter Olympics!
If global warming threatens the future of the Winter Games in the long term, the International Olympic Committee must also deal with a more immediate problem: fewer and fewer cities are ready to welcome this fortnight of white with salty invoice and wavering popularity, especially in Europe.
rotation system
“The Games must be redesigned: as they become larger and larger, this excludes, for example, resorts in the Alps”, notes Robert Siegler of the University of Innsbruck, who participated in the Canadian study.
“We need smaller Games, abounds Martin Müller, of the University of Lausanne. Not necessarily for athletes, because there are very few athletes (2,800 in Beijing, compared to 11,000 in Tokyo last summer). What makes the territorial/carbon footprint are the spectators, the media, the whole entourage in fact, in my opinion we must put sport and the athletes back at the center of these Games”.
This academic proposes a radical measure to cushion the costs, financial and environmental, of the construction of a bobsleigh/luge/skeleton track, a ski jumping hill and a speed skating ring: entrusting the Olympic Games with several times to the same host city.
“You could imagine finding three or four cities in the world that have the infrastructure to rotate with one city in Europe, another in America, another in Asia. It would also work for the Summer Games,” he hopes.
According to him, it is the survival of the Winter Olympics that is at stake: “Will this lead to more modest Games or will they become less and less popular with a lack of host cities for the long term? disappear? »
Robert Steigler believes that the Winter Olympics can find a second wind by reconnecting with their history, when they were vectors in the XXand century of tourism development in the Alps in particular.
“There are plenty of emerging markets like China, Kazakhstan, Turkey, Bulgaria where there are mountains and a winter tourism industry that could grow through a mega-event like the Olympics,” he believes.