Snowmaking at the Olympics is hardly new, first occurring in 1980 when stubborn skies over Lake Placid led to staffers shoveling truckloads onto barren cross-country ski trails. And thanks in part to climate change, the practice has become increasingly necessary, with subtropical Sochi using about 80% man-made snow in 2014 and arid PyeongChang topping 90% four years later.
But the 2022 Games will take it one step further: None of the snow will be real. At both the alpine skiing venue in Yanqing, a mountainous Beijing suburb, and at the biathlon, cross-country, freestyle, nordic, ski jumping and snowboarding venues in Zhangjiakou, a ski destination 100 miles northwest of the host city, the temperatures regularly dip below freezing, but natural monthly snowfall is best measured in centimeters. “The Olympics cannot rely on that,” says Michael Mayr. “So they have to be sure the snow is there when they start.”
