tag:theconversation.com,2011:/au/topics/winter-olympics-8708/articlesWinter olympics – The Conversation2024-01-25T01:29:23Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2214052024-01-25T01:29:23Z2024-01-25T01:29:23Z2024 is a huge year for the Olympics – and it’s not just about the Paris games<p>2024 is a leap year, and in the world of international sport it means something very exciting: it’s an Olympic year. For Australians, there is growing excitement about the 2032 games to be held in Brisbane. And between those four-yearly stints, there is also the winter Olympics to keep us entertained.</p>
<p>So let’s take a look at what’s coming up, and what it might mean for Australian athletes and audiences. </p>
<h2>The 2024 Paris Olympics</h2>
<p>A good example of the growing excitement around this year’s games is the new Australian Olympic television broadcaster, Channel 9, bombarding us with promotional commercials. </p>
<p>With Australia finishing sixth overall at the 2020/21 Tokyo Olympics with 46 medals, there is optimism for another top 10 finish in Paris this year.</p>
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<h2>2032 Brisbane summer Olympics</h2>
<p>Organising a global sporting event such as the Olympics is a massive logistical exercise, so it’s no surprise the <a href="https://www.qld.gov.au/about/brisbane2032/brisbane-2032-organising-committee">organising committee</a> for the Brisbane games has already been set up, despite the games being more than eight years away.</p>
<p>There is growing reluctance for countries to take on the huge financial burden of hosting events like the Olympics. As a result, the planning for 2032 is in full swing with a goal that these games not “break the bank” with expensive facilities, staying within budget and also delivering key <a href="https://q2032.au/plans/games-legacy">legacy goals</a> well after the games finish.</p>
<p>However, some recent disagreement within the infrastructure planning process has led the Queensland state government to <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-01-18/graham-quirk-to-lead-qld-olympics-review/103349700">instigate a review</a> of the master plan and what it says are the “over the top costs”. These are estimated at $2.7 billion to refurbish the ‘Gabba as the main Olympic stadium, and a new $2.5 billion Brisbane Arena.</p>
<p>With plenty of time to sort out this and other issues, there is confidence that Brisbane will continue the Australian tradition of being a great Olympic host. </p>
<h2>2024 Youth Winter Olympics</h2>
<p>Starting in 2010, the Youth Olympic Games (summer and winter) for athletes aged from 15 to 18 were added to the Olympic schedule. The fourth <a href="https://www.olympics.com.au/news/australias-largest-winter-youth-olympic-games-team-set-for-gangwon-2024">Youth Winter Olympics</a> are being held in Gangwon, South Korea, from January 19 to February 1 2024. With over 70 nations, 81 events and 1,900 athletes participating, this youth-based event is growing in stature and popularity.</p>
<p>Australia has its largest representation ever, with a record 47 athletes competing in eight disciplines, including the first all-Australian ice hockey team. In the previous three youth games, Australia has won seven medals. We can expect more in Korea. </p>
<p>Interestingly, there will be significant media coverage on 9Now, Stan Sport and the AOC website as well as Australian Olympic team social channels, highlighting how this multi-sport event has grown in popularity.</p>
<h2>100th anniversary of the first Winter Olympics</h2>
<p>Of special Olympic significance is that January 25 marks the 100th anniversary of the Winter Olympics. The first Winter Olympics were held in Chamonix, France, in 1924. This rather modest event, held over 11 days, had 258 athletes from six participating nations competing in 16 different events in five sports. </p>
<p>While initially a poor cousin of the summer games, the winter edition gradually expanded and improved its profile. At the 2022 Beijing games, the numbers expanded to 2,092 athletes, seven sports, 15 disciplines, 109 events and 91 nations, including those with little or no history in winter sports.</p>
<p>This growth resulted for several reasons: adding in lots of new sports and events, pressure from the <a href="https://www.xgames.com/">X Games</a> and its appeal to a youth audience, adding sports that are television-friendly, promoting gender balance, increased corporate and sponsorship funding and, starting in 1994, putting the winter games on a new cycle of even years between the summer games.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/everyones-a-winner-with-new-events-at-the-winter-games-22820">Everyone's a winner with new events at the Winter Games</a>
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<h2>Australia’s Winter Olympics journey</h2>
<p>Australia is not the first nation that springs to mind when considering the Winter Olympics due to its warm climate. We always perform extremely well at the summer games, ranking 14th with 566 medals in 2021. While we will likely never replicate this placing in the winter games, there has been significant improvement.</p>
<p>Australia was not represented at the 1924 Winter Olympics 100 years ago. In 1936, it participated in its first Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, with just one competitor, speed skater Kenneth Kennedy. </p>
<p>However, after a sluggish and inconsistent history in the winter games, we won our first medal in 1994. Since then, we have won medals at every games and our world rank has risen to 25th with 19 medals.</p>
<p>Our winter Olympians have produced a number of exciting performances, with several athletes winning two medals. These include Alisa Camplin and Lydia Lassila in aerial skiing, Dale Begg-Smith in mogul skiing, Torah Bright in the half-pipe and Scotty James in snowboarding.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/better-late-than-never-australias-winter-olympic-medallists-22884">Better late than never: Australia's Winter Olympic medallists</a>
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<p>By far our most famous medallist is Steven Bradbury, who won a bronze medal in team speed skating in 1994 and then our first ever gold medal in the same sport at the 2002 Salt Lake City games. He won in unconventional fashion, shooting forward from the back of the pack to win after all the leaders collided and fell. </p>
<p>His triumph, dubbed the “accidental gold”, became legendary and part of Olympic lore. It also entered the vernacular: “to do a Bradbury” means to win in an unusual and unexpected circumstance. Bradbury’s achievements have been recognised with an ice rink named after him at the O’Brien Icehouse in Melbourne.</p>
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<p>To support its athletes, Australia has made investments in winter sports infrastructure and athlete development. </p>
<p>The Olympic Winter Institute of Australia was set up in 1998, funded by the Australian Olympic Committee and the Australian Sports Commission. It has been a major reason for our increased Olympic success. The purpose of this investment is to develop talent and increase the nation’s ability to compete in the Winter Olympics. </p>
<p>In addition, the media, the corporate sector and the public are now also on board the winter Olympic bandwagon.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/advance-australia-five-steps-to-winter-games-success-22885">Advance Australia: five steps to Winter Games success</a>
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<p>The next winter games in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo in 2026 represent a good chance for our best-ever medal haul.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/221405/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Baka does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>All the attention is on the Paris summer games starting in July, but there’s plenty else to get excited about this year.Richard Baka, Honorary Professor, School of Kinesiology, Western University, London, Canada; Adjunct Fellow, Olympic Scholar and Co-Director of the Olympic and Paralympic Research Centre, Institute for Health and Sport, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1770402022-02-19T09:33:20Z2022-02-19T09:33:20ZHow climate change threatens the Winter Olympics’ future – even snowmaking has limits for saving the Games<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447369/original/file-20220218-41748-1vbdyob.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=43%2C157%2C2682%2C1771&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Almost all of the snow at the 2022 Winter Olympics came from machines.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/BeijingOlympicsFreestyleSkiing/290957ac00914a42b130c25c877be53a/photo">AP Photo/Gregory Bull</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Winter Olympics is an adrenaline rush as athletes fly down snow-covered ski slopes, luge tracks and over the ice at breakneck speeds and with grace.</p>
<p>When the <a href="https://olympics.com/en/olympic-games/chamonix-1924">first Olympic Winter Games</a> were held in Chamonix, France, in 1924, all 16 events took place outdoors. The athletes relied on natural snow for ski runs and freezing temperatures for ice rinks.</p>
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<img alt="Two skaters on ice outside with mountains in the background. They are posing as if gliding together." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447356/original/file-20220218-43671-w7eafo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447356/original/file-20220218-43671-w7eafo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447356/original/file-20220218-43671-w7eafo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447356/original/file-20220218-43671-w7eafo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=770&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447356/original/file-20220218-43671-w7eafo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447356/original/file-20220218-43671-w7eafo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447356/original/file-20220218-43671-w7eafo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=968&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Sonja Henie, left, and Gilles Grafstrom at the Olympic Winter Games in Chamonix, France, in 1924.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SonjaHenieandGillesGrafstrom/78bbbc3ba3e3da11af9f0014c2589dfb/photo">The Associated Press</a></span>
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<p>Nearly a century later, in 2022, the world watched skiers race down runs of 100% human-made snow near Beijing. Luge tracks and ski jumps have their own refrigeration, and four of the original events are now held indoors: Figure skaters, speed skaters, curlers and hockey teams all compete in climate-controlled buildings.</p>
<p>Innovation made the 2022 Winter Games possible in Beijing, but snowmaking can go only so far in a warming climate.</p>
<p>As global temperatures rise, what will the Winter Games look like in another century? Will they even be possible?</p>
<h2>Former host cities that would be too warm</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2018.1436161">average daytime temperature</a> of Winter Games host cities in February has increased steadily since those first events in Chamonix, rising from 33 degrees Fahrenheit (0.4 C) in the 1920s-1950s to 46 F (7.8 C) in the early 21st century.</p>
<p>In a recent study, scientists <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2018.1436161">looked at the venues of 19 past Winter Olympics</a> to see how each might hold up under future climate change.</p>
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<img alt="A cross-country skier falls in front of another during a race. The second skier has his mouth open as if shouting." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447358/original/file-20220218-42890-462i4q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447358/original/file-20220218-42890-462i4q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447358/original/file-20220218-42890-462i4q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447358/original/file-20220218-42890-462i4q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=366&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447358/original/file-20220218-42890-462i4q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447358/original/file-20220218-42890-462i4q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447358/original/file-20220218-42890-462i4q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=460&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Human-made snow was used to augment trails at the Sochi Games in 2014. Some athletes complained that it made the trails icier and more dangerous.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/XXCClimateDangerousSnow/0b148fbbb5ac48c4ba6319f7f030c855/photo">AP Photo/Dmitry Lovetsky</a></span>
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<p>They found that by midcentury, four former host cities – Chamonix; Sochi, Russia; Grenoble, France; and Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany – would no longer have a reliable climate for hosting the Games, even under the United Nations’ best-case scenario for climate change, which assumes the world quickly cuts its greenhouse gas emissions. If the world continues burning fossil fuels at high rates, Squaw Valley, California, and Vancouver, British Columbia, would join that list.</p>
<p>By the 2080s, the scientists found, the climates in 11 of 21 former venues would be too unreliable to host the Winter Olympics’ outdoor events; among them were Turin, Italy; Nagano, Japan; and Innsbruck, Austria.</p>
<p>These venues would all be susceptible to problems associated with snowmaking. </p>
<p>Ideal snowmaking conditions today require a <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2022/01/23/snowmaking-ski-resort-artificial-climate/">dewpoint temperature</a> – the combination of coldness and humidity – of around <a href="https://www.tusseymountain.com/snowmaking">28 F (-2 C) or less</a>. More moisture in the air melts snow and ice at <a href="https://iahs.info/uploads/dms/15547.14-65-70-360-01-Fassnacht_etal.pdf">colder temperatures</a>, which affects snow on ski slopes and ice on bobsled, skeleton and luge tracks.</p>
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<span class="caption">A satellite view clearly shows the absence of natural snow during the 2022 Winter Olympics. Beijing’s bid to host the Winter Games had explained how extensively it would rely on snowmaking.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/149430/a-satellite-view-of-olympic-terrain">Joshua Stevens/NASA Earth Observatory</a></span>
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<span class="caption">The finish area of the Alpine ski venue at the 2022 Winter Olympics was white because of artificially made snow.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/BeijingOlympicsAlpineSkiing/5c9eec01890844a8a471bde42463e406/photo">AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty</a></span>
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<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=p4UqsX0AAAAJ&hl=en">Colorado snow</a> <a href="https://warnercnr.colostate.edu/person/?user=pIv7%2Bvwdy3%2BBo/yXa22Zpw==">and sustainability</a> scientists and avid skiers, we’ve been watching the developments and studying the climate impact on the mountains and winter sports we love. </p>
<h2>Conditions vary by location and year to year</h2>
<p>The Earth’s <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/">climate will be warmer</a> overall in the coming decades. Warmer air can mean <a href="https://theconversation.com/devastating-colorado-fires-cap-a-year-of-climate-disasters-in-2021-with-one-side-of-the-country-too-wet-the-other-dangerously-dry-173402">more precipitation</a> in some areas. It can also mean more winter rain, particularly at lower elevations. Over the globe, snow has been <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.150970">covering less area</a>. </p>
<p>However, local changes vary. For example, in northern Colorado, the amount of snow has <a href="https://doi.org/10.5194/piahs-371-131-2015">decreased since the 1970s</a>, but the decline has <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/w10050562">mostly been at higher elevations</a>.</p>
<p>A future climate may also be <a href="https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1716789115">more humid</a>, which <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-couldn%E2%80%99t-have-the-beijing-olympics-without-snow-machines-how-do-they-work-and-whats-the-environmental-cost-176795">affects snowmaking</a> and could affect bobsled, luge and skeleton tracks.</p>
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<img alt="Several barrels blow snow onto one ski run while skiers uses another." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447361/original/file-20220218-3064-1c25dsy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447361/original/file-20220218-3064-1c25dsy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447361/original/file-20220218-3064-1c25dsy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447361/original/file-20220218-3064-1c25dsy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447361/original/file-20220218-3064-1c25dsy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447361/original/file-20220218-3064-1c25dsy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447361/original/file-20220218-3064-1c25dsy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Snowmaking machines spray artificially made snow on a ski slope during a test ahead of the 2022 Winter Olympics.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ChinaSkiCrossWorldCup/6c55b1f1e56e44c19414337f056e744c/photo">AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein</a></span>
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<p>Of the <a href="https://olympics.com/en/beijing-2022/sports/">15 Winter Games sports today</a>, seven are affected by temperature and snow: alpine skiing, biathlon, cross-country skiing, freestyle skiing, Nordic combined, ski jumping and snowboarding. And three are affected by temperature and humidity: bobsled, luge and skeleton.</p>
<h2>Technology also changes</h2>
<p>Developments in technology have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2014.887665">helped the Winter Games adapt</a> to some changes over the past century.</p>
<p>Hockey moved indoors, followed by skating. Luge and bobsled tracks were refrigerated <a href="https://www.ibsf.org/en/our-sports/skeleton-history">in the 1960s</a>. The <a href="https://olympics.com/en/olympic-games/lake-placid-1980">Lake Placid Winter Games in 1980</a> used snowmaking to augment natural snow on the ski slopes.</p>
<p>Today, initiatives are exploring ways to make skiing possible year-round with <a href="https://alpine-x.com/">indoor skiing facilities</a>. <a href="https://www.skidxb.com/">Ski Dubai</a>, open since 2005, has five ski runs on a hill the height of a 25-story building inside a resort attached to a shopping mall.</p>
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<img alt="Two workers pack snow on an indoor ski slope with a sloped ceiling overhead." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447364/original/file-20220218-44444-1se55e7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447364/original/file-20220218-44444-1se55e7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447364/original/file-20220218-44444-1se55e7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447364/original/file-20220218-44444-1se55e7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447364/original/file-20220218-44444-1se55e7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447364/original/file-20220218-44444-1se55e7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447364/original/file-20220218-44444-1se55e7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dubai has an indoor ski slope with multiple runs and a chairlift, all part of a shopping mall complex.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/VirusOutbreakEmirates/9defb929928a4f0f81d259f195007107/photo">AP Photo/Jon Gambrell</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But making snow and keeping it cold requires energy and water – and both become issues in a warming world. Water becomes more scarce in many areas. And energy, if it means more fossil fuel use, further <a href="https://ugc.berkeley.edu/background-content/burning-of-fossil-fuels/">contributes to climate change</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://olympics.com/ioc/news/the-ioc-and-the-olympic-games-addressing-climate-change">International Olympic Committee recognizes</a> that the future climate will have a big impact on the Olympics, both winter and summer. It also recognizes the importance of ensuring the adaptations <a href="https://olympics.com/ioc/sustainability">are sustainable</a>.</p>
<p>The Winter Olympics could become limited to more northerly locations, <a href="https://olympics.com/en/olympic-games/calgary-1988">like Calgary, Alberta</a>, or be pushed to <a href="https://doi.org/10.25675/10217/222418">higher elevations</a>.</p>
<h2>Summer Games are feeling climate pressure, too</h2>
<p>The Summer Games also face challenges. <a href="https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/28075216">Hot temperatures and high humidity</a> can make competing in the summer difficult, but these sports have more flexibility than winter sports.</p>
<p>For example, changing the timing of typical summer events to another season can help alleviate excessive temperatures. The <a href="https://www.espn.com/soccer/fifa-world-cup/story/4345373/qatar-2022-how-will-football-squeeze-in-a-world-cup-in-november-december">2022 World Cup</a>, normally a summer event, is scheduled for November so Qatar can host it.</p>
<p>What makes adaptation more difficult for the Winter Games is the necessity of snow or ice for all of the events.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A snowboarder with 'USA' on her gloves puts her arms out for balance on a run." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447367/original/file-20220218-2552-ereikj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447367/original/file-20220218-2552-ereikj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447367/original/file-20220218-2552-ereikj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447367/original/file-20220218-2552-ereikj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=338&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447367/original/file-20220218-2552-ereikj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447367/original/file-20220218-2552-ereikj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447367/original/file-20220218-2552-ereikj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=424&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Climate change threatens the ideal environments for snowboarders, like U.S. Olympian Hailey Langland, competing here during the women’s snowboard big air final in Beijing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/BeijingOlympicsSnowboardBigAir/c8a95826680b4213a3f4ded228e04a77/photo">AP Photo/Jae C. Hong</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Future depends on responses to climate change</h2>
<p>In uncertain times, the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/0266543042000192475">Olympics offer a way for the world to come together</a>.</p>
<p>People are thrilled by the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09523367.2020.1866474">athletic feats</a>, like Jean-Claude Killy winning all three Alpine skiing events in 1968, and stories of perseverance, like the 1988 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgulzUHbZik">Jamaican bobsled team</a> competing beyond all expectation.</p>
<p>The Winter Games’ outdoor sports may look very different in the future. How different will <a href="https://www.imperial.ac.uk/grantham/publications/climate-change-faqs/what-are-the-worlds-countries-doing-about-climate-change/">depend heavily on how countries respond</a> to climate change.</p>
<p>[<em>Understand new developments in science, health and technology, each week.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?nl=science&source=inline-science-understand">Subscribe to The Conversation’s science newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177040/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Innovation made the 2022 Winter Games possible in Beijing, but snowmaking has limits in a warming climate.Steven R. Fassnacht, Professor of Snow Hydrology, Colorado State UniversitySunshine Swetnam, Assistant Professor of Natural Resources, Colorado State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1770272022-02-17T20:08:14Z2022-02-17T20:08:14ZRising costs of climate change threaten to make skiing a less diverse, even more exclusive sport<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447098/original/file-20220217-9608-qkwoe3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=850%2C183%2C4259%2C2980&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some resorts have launched diversity efforts to try to appeal to a wider community.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/portrait-of-skier-royalty-free-image/97534255">Johannes Kroemer via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Watching skiers compete <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/02/13/1080446506/weather-snow-disrupts-events-at-the-beijing-olympics">almost entirely</a> <a href="https://theconversation.com/olympic-skiers-and-snowboarders-are-competing-on-100-fake-snow-the-science-of-how-its-made-and-how-it-affects-performance-176339">on artificially made snow</a> at the 2022 Winter Olympics, we found it hard not to think about climate change and what it will mean for the future of the winter sports industry – and who will be able to participate.</p>
<p>Ski areas are increasingly reliant on extensive snowmaking operations to keep their slopes open as the planet warms. A few degrees of warming can mean more days of <a href="https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/chapter/2/">rain instead of snow</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2017.1410110">shorter seasons</a>. That reduces the operators’ revenue and raises their costs.</p>
<p>Those costs, passed along to visitors in higher lift ticket and resort prices, directly affect who can afford to spend a day on the slopes skiing or snowboarding. </p>
<p>As resorts’ costs rise, these already expensive sports risk becoming more exclusive and less diverse.</p>
<p><a href="https://ahs.illinois.edu/warwick">Our</a> <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=yEcX-t0AAAAJ&hl=en">research</a> involves what’s known as <a href="https://www.intersectionalenvironmentalist.com/topic-identity-leaders">intersectional sustainability</a> in sports – looking at how to ensure they are both inclusive and environmentally sustainable. For ski resorts, intersectional sustainability means acknowledging that climate change may result in the unintended consequence of further entrenching the sports’ lack of diversity, and proactively seeking to prevent that. </p>
<h2>Adaptation is necessary, and expensive</h2>
<p>Creating artificial snow to adapt to climate change doesn’t come cheap.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.holidayvalley.com/winter/snowmaking-grooming/">Holiday Valley</a>, a small resort in Ellicottville, New York, has invested over $13 million in snowmaking equipment in the past 40 years. On top of that are the costs of energy, labor and piping in <a href="https://blog.steamboat.com/the-most-modern-and-energy-efficient-way-to-create-the-early-season-fluff/">thousands of gallons of water a minute</a> to run snowmaking machines. Even as snowmaking machines become more efficient, the <a href="https://files.danfoss.com/download/Drives/ITDDPC400A102_TechnoAlpin_LR.pdf">overall cost is still significant</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Skiers on a lift with a snowmaking machine running below" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447097/original/file-20220217-25-1u5rm27.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447097/original/file-20220217-25-1u5rm27.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447097/original/file-20220217-25-1u5rm27.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447097/original/file-20220217-25-1u5rm27.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=410&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447097/original/file-20220217-25-1u5rm27.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447097/original/file-20220217-25-1u5rm27.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447097/original/file-20220217-25-1u5rm27.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=515&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Snowmaking machines, like this one at Breckenridge Ski Resort in Colorado, use a lot of water and are often expensive to run.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/snowboarder-and-a-skier-ride-the-rips-ride-lift-while-a-news-photo/1190523571">Andy Cross/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>An <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2017.1401984">analysis of the outlook for Blue Mountain</a>, a ski resort in Ontario, Canada, offers a glimpse of the future. </p>
<p>In a best-case scenario, if the world achieves the <a href="https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement">Paris climate agreement</a> goal of limiting warming to under 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F), Blue Mountain’s ski season is to likely shorten by 8% and its snowmaking efforts would have to almost double by 2050. The window of ideal weather for snowmaking would also reduce by 22%, meaning the resort would be making snow under less efficient conditions, which further drives up the cost. Those extra costs likely will show up in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2014.01.009">higher lift ticket and resort prices</a>.</p>
<p>Smaller resorts may be forced to take on debt to finance snowmaking equipment. High leverage ratios have been <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00036846.2020.1770683">shown to reduce profitability</a> for ski resorts. Some smaller ski areas have <a href="https://nsaa.org/webdocs/Media_Public/IndustryStats/ski_areas_per_season_thru_2021.pdf">shut down</a>, leaving fewer nearby options for skiing and snowboarding in some areas and reducing competition that could help keep prices in check.</p>
<h2>Resorts already struggle with diversity</h2>
<p>Alpine skiing and snowboarding resorts already draw criticism for their lack of diversity. </p>
<p>In 2019-20, 69% of visitors who described themselves as skiers and 61% as snowboarders identified as Caucasian or white, according to <a href="https://members.snowsports.org/research-center/">Snowsports Industries of America</a>. The organization found the most frequent participants are even less diverse. </p>
<p>A separate survey by the <a href="https://www.nsaa.org/NSAA/Resources/Industry_Stats/NSAA/Media/Industry_Stats.aspx?hkey=8247ed3b-e20e-46d2-9c5d-36b92782c297">National Ski Area Association</a> found a wider difference: 87.5% of U.S. visits that season were individuals identifying as Caucasian or white, and only 1.5% were people identifying as Black or African American. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://members.snowsports.org/research-center/">Snowsports Industries of America</a> survey also found a wealth gap. More than 63% of skiers and 55% of snowboarders had an income over $75,000, almost double the <a href="https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2021/demo/p60-273.html">median earnings</a> of Americans. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A family with young children on skis" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447096/original/file-20220217-15-z0erz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/447096/original/file-20220217-15-z0erz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447096/original/file-20220217-15-z0erz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447096/original/file-20220217-15-z0erz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447096/original/file-20220217-15-z0erz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447096/original/file-20220217-15-z0erz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/447096/original/file-20220217-15-z0erz8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">As costs rise, family ski trips can get expensive. Smaller ski areas, like this one in Quebec, Canada, offer opportunities, but their costs are rising, too.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/multi-ethnic-family-with-their-friends-skying-royalty-free-image/1043765830">Manonallard via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some resort corporations, including <a href="https://www.aspensnowmass.com/discover/who-we-are/racial-justice">Aspen Snowmass</a> and <a href="https://www.powdr.com/play-forever">Powdr</a>, have committed to increasing diversity and inclusion at their resorts. Powdr, for example, has community initiatives in its “Play Forever” campaign that include awarding scholarships to help people attend their camps and a partnership with <a href="https://www.stoked.org/">STOKED</a>, a nonprofit that mentors young people from underserved communities who are interested in board sports.</p>
<p>But among several other <a href="https://www.nsaa.org/NSAA/Media/Who_Owns_Which_Mountain_Resorts.aspx">corporate-owned ski resorts</a>, there is a noticeable lack of diversity efforts on their corporate websites. Eight resort companies included either no mention of diversity and inclusion or provided no evidence of initiatives supporting these efforts on their corporate websites.</p>
<p>The results suggest to us that the rising costs of climate adaptation will leave many would-be skiers and snowboarders unable to enjoy the sports.</p>
<h2>Three tactics to improve diversity for the future</h2>
<p>As the climate changes, management practices can also change to keep the slopes accessible.</p>
<p>One effective strategy is engaging and partnering with community organizations that focus on diversity and inclusion. By working with organizations engaged in the community, Powdr can connect with disadvantaged youth and introduce them to snowboarding and skiing, for example.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 150,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletters to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://memberservices.theconversation.com/newsletters/?source=inline-150ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>Ski resorts can also engage directly with nonprofits like the <a href="https://nbs1973.clubexpress.com/">National Brotherhood of Skiers</a>, whose mission is to develop and support athletes of color in winter sports, and communities that are underrepresented on the mountain to understand how decisions related to climate adaptation may have the unintended consequence of further entrenching inequalities.</p>
<p>Resort corporations can also improve their connections with diverse communities by increasing the diversity of leadership and creating senior leadership positions in charge of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. </p>
<p>By including diverse communities in the climate adaptation discussion, ski resorts have a better chance of achieving a future where snow sports are more accessible for everyone.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/177027/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian P. McCullough is also the Co-Director of the Sport Ecology Group. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lance Warwick does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As temperatures warm, ski and snowboard resorts are investing more in snowmaking and seeing their seasons shrink. Those costs roll down to customers in an already expensive sport.Brian P. McCullough, Associate Professor of Sport Management and Director of the Laboratory for Sustainability in Sport, Texas A&M UniversityLance Warwick, Graduate student, University of Illinois at Urbana-ChampaignLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1765062022-02-14T16:51:35Z2022-02-14T16:51:35ZWhy do we like watching the Olympics so much?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/446051/original/file-20220212-55472-vs60h6.JPG?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=8%2C8%2C5590%2C3699&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Fans cheer during the women's snowboard slopestyle final at the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Interest in sports is so common that we don’t always stop to wonder why. Unlike food and sex, there is no obvious survival or reproductive value to sports spectatorship and fandom. </p>
<p>If we weren’t in a pandemic, people would have undoubtedly travelled across the world to watch the Olympics in China. Even people who don’t usually watch sports tune in the Olympic Games. </p>
<p>Why, then, is it so fun to watch the Olympics? What do people get out of the energy, time and money they invest in watching other people play sports? </p>
<h2>We love to play</h2>
<p>Humans, like all mammals, play. We engage in activities that are superficially similar to being useful, but aren’t. Play is for practice, and animals play differently depending on how they have to act as adults. Kittens pounce, deer leap and run. </p>
<p>For us, sports often reflect activities our ancestors would have found useful, like hunting and competing with others — throwing objects, co-ordinating a team, lifting, running, fighting and so on. This explains why we <em>play</em> sports, but not why we watch them. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.conb.2005.03.013">Studies of the brain’s mirror neuron system</a> suggest that when we watch others engaging in physical activity, a part of our brain is simulating ourselves doing the same. This is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2006.01.033">true for watching dance</a>, as well as other sports. </p>
<p>In other words, a part of your mind thinks it’s slam-dunking a basketball when we watch someone do it on television. When our minds simulate others’ behaviour, we learn by observation. Our minds are learning when we watch people do amazing physical feats.</p>
<h2>We are wired to love drama</h2>
<p>Most sports are competitive, and interest in competition is common in our appreciation of sports. We see the outcome of a sports competition as meaningful, partly because it demonstrates a status change — one person or team besting another — that our minds find important. </p>
<p>Symbolic competition is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.anbehav.2009.02.010">common in the animal world</a>. For instance, crabs <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1111/j.1439-0310.1988.tb00207.x">wave their claws in the air</a> until someone backs down instead of physically fighting one another.</p>
<p>When someone is perceived as competing on our behalf — such as when they represent our country in the Olympics — the competition carries the weight of importance. Even though we personally aren’t winning, it feels like we are because we are projecting onto the athletes wearing our country’s flag. </p>
<p>The effect is similar to the results of a study that found male sports fans got a <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0031-9384(98)00147-4">surge of testosterone</a> when their team won. We’ve all experienced the vicarious emotions caused by watching others’ wins and losses. We can’t help but be moved by the heroic efforts of our athletes competing on the world stage.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Four people in long, red winter coats wave Chinese flags" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445516/original/file-20220209-27-gfd6up.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445516/original/file-20220209-27-gfd6up.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445516/original/file-20220209-27-gfd6up.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445516/original/file-20220209-27-gfd6up.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445516/original/file-20220209-27-gfd6up.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445516/original/file-20220209-27-gfd6up.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445516/original/file-20220209-27-gfd6up.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Fans cheer before the men’s speedskating 1,500-metre race at the 2022 Winter Olympics on Feb. 8 in Beijing.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Sue Ogrocki)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We are also interested in the resolution of uncertainty — it’s why we are much more likely to watch a TV show that came out last year than to watch sports from the same time. Watching sports in real time feels more important because the outcome is still uncertain. </p>
<p>People enjoy close games more than when one opponent demolishes the other — even if the winner <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1527002510376789">represents our own country</a>. This uncertainty is also an attractive part of stories, when we feel the need to find out what happens. This suggests that some part of sport fandom is continuous with artistic appreciation.</p>
<h2>Sports can be beautiful</h2>
<p>For some sports, the overlap with performing arts is obvious: cheerleading, synchronized swimming, professional wrestling, figure skating, ballroom dancing, gymnastics and so on. In competition, these sports need panels of raters because we lack a more objective measure of performance. </p>
<p>But even prototypical sports, such as football and hockey, often <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265266108_Motivational_Profiles_of_Sport_Fans_of_Different_Sports_Motivational_Profiles_of_Sport_Fans_of_Different_Sports">generate feelings of aesthetic awe</a> in spectators. </p>
<p>Our love of sports is multi-faceted, which helps explain our complex reactions to them. Why do we have so many different kinds of sports? Why isn’t one sport enough? It is likely that they cater to different drives within us. The Olympics are a veritable buffet of sport delights, catering to our senses of loyalty, our drive to learn and to resolve uncertainty, and to see beauty in physical prowess. </p>
<p>At its core, the Olympics aim to bring people of all nations together to celebrate great feats of athletic achievement. There is an undeniable connection that ties viewers together across time and space.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176506/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jim Davies does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From projecting onto athletes to aesthetic appreciation, spectators get a surprising amount out of watching other people play sports.Jim Davies, Professor, Institute of Cognitive Science, Carleton UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1767952022-02-13T18:48:51Z2022-02-13T18:48:51ZWe couldn’t have the Beijing Olympics without snow machines. How do they work, and what’s the environmental cost?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445577/original/file-20220210-1970-2xytwr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=170%2C306%2C7407%2C4737&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Dan Himbrechts/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Snow machines have exploited the laws of thermodynamics to paint the slopes of Beijing white for this year’s Winter Olympics.</p>
<p>Beijing might seem like an odd place for the winter games. The city receives almost no annual snowfall and has an <a href="https://en.climate-data.org/asia/china/beijing/beijing-134/">average temperature</a> just below 0°C, even in the winter month of February. </p>
<p>Chinese authorities have used <a href="https://www.technoalpin.com/en/about-us/news/100-technoalpin-olympic-snow">more than 350 snow machines</a> to prepare courses for the world’s athletes. This practice has become more common over the past few Winter Olympics, with the Sochi and Pyeongchang games relying on <a href="https://time.com/6146039/artificial-snow-2022-olympics-beijing/">80% and 98% artificial snow, respectively</a>.</p>
<p>But isn’t all this artificial snow terribly expensive? If you own an air conditioner and keep half an eye on your energy bill, you’d expect snowmaking to be hugely energy-intensive. The uninitiated might think of snow machines as giant freezers with fans attached, guzzling cities’ worth of electricity to refrigerate entire mountainsides.</p>
<p>This isn’t really the case. Efficient machines in suitable climates (such as <a href="https://olympics.com/ioc/news/snow-climate-change-and-the-olympic-winter-games">Beijing’s</a>) can use as little as <a href="https://bioone.org/journals/mountain-research-and-development/volume-31/issue-3/MRD-JOURNAL-D-10-00112.1/Winter-Tourism-and-Climate-Change-in-the-Alps--An/10.1659/MRD-JOURNAL-D-10-00112.1.full">1.5 kilowatt-hours per cubic metre of snow produced</a>. In Beijing’s climate, you could coat a Sydney apartment in a few inches of snow with the same energy the air conditioning would use in an hour.</p>
<p>But that’s not to say there’s no environmental cost. More on that later. </p>
<h2>How do snow machines work?</h2>
<p>Artificial snow is no chemical trick. The slopes of this year’s event are coated in pure frozen water. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445570/original/file-20220210-27-zii13c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Snowgun shoots artificial snow towards skiers." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445570/original/file-20220210-27-zii13c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445570/original/file-20220210-27-zii13c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445570/original/file-20220210-27-zii13c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445570/original/file-20220210-27-zii13c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445570/original/file-20220210-27-zii13c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445570/original/file-20220210-27-zii13c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445570/original/file-20220210-27-zii13c.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Artificial snow is shot out in blower-type machines.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Fundamentally, snow machines work by using a clever thermodynamic exploit, leveraging the natural cooling that happens when water evaporates. And because their cooling power comes from evaporation, they can operate at relatively warm temperatures, up to 1°C (provided the humidity is low enough). </p>
<p>Here’s how it works. Snow machines expel a fine water mist into the cold, dry atmosphere. Some of the water in each droplet quickly evaporates, carrying away heat and lowering the temperature of the rest of the droplet to below its freezing point. This process is known as “evaporative cooling”, and is the same mechanism that cools us when we sweat. </p>
<p>Because the energy loss required to form ice in this process is driven by evaporation, snow machines don’t have to expend energy to <em>freeze</em> water. They only require energy to power the fans and compressors that disperse the water droplets.</p>
<p>However, as any winter Olympian will tell you, snow is more than just frozen water. And snow machines must produce a blanket of powder worthy of the world’s greatest athletes. </p>
<p>They achieve this by using a “nucleator”, which is basically any substance that makes it easier to form an ice crystal. Without this, the droplets in the mist would end up as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9N-Y2CyYhM">supercooled water</a> and clump into large droplets before freezing. This would create undesirably dense and icy snow.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/_9N-Y2CyYhM?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Supercooled water is water which is cooled below freezing point, but which remains liquid because nucleation of the new solid phase is difficult.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Nucleators can be chemical or biological, but in Beijing <a href="https://olympics.com/ioc/news/snow-climate-change-and-the-olympic-winter-games">no such aids are being used</a>. Instead, tiny ice crystals are being used as nucleators. These nucleator ice crystals themselves are formed by yet more thermodynamic manipulation, wherein pressurised water is forced through a nozzle, quickly reducing the pressure and breaking it into tiny droplets. </p>
<p>When the pressure of a gas is rapidly reduced, its temperature also drops – which is why deodorant from a pressurised spray can feels cold. In this case, the sudden drop in temperature cools the atomised water well below 0°C, rapidly freezing it into the nucleator ice crystals.</p>
<p>In the final step of the snow-making process, these ice crystals mix with the water mist and are propelled through the air, with the water freezing and falling as artificial snow. Propulsion is achieved either through the use of compressed air, in the case of snow lances, or through blower-type machines with large fans.</p>
<p>The snow that forms in this process isn’t quite the same as real snow, because artificial snow forms quickly from liquid droplets, instead of slowly from water vapour. As a result, the shape of artificial snow particles is different to that in natural snow. The former has no beautiful single-crystal structures, only tiny (polycrystalline) snowballs.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445569/original/file-20220210-27-n5rd1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445569/original/file-20220210-27-n5rd1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445569/original/file-20220210-27-n5rd1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=218&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445569/original/file-20220210-27-n5rd1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=218&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445569/original/file-20220210-27-n5rd1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=218&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445569/original/file-20220210-27-n5rd1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=273&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445569/original/file-20220210-27-n5rd1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=273&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/445569/original/file-20220210-27-n5rd1.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=273&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The image on the left shows mostly natural snow crystals with some artificially produced snow underneath, whereas the right shows only snowball shaped artificial snow.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2006/olympic_ice.html">Eric Erbe/USDA/NASA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The sustainability question</h2>
<p>As our climate warms and weather patterns shift, we’re becoming increasingly dependent on artificial snow to meet the demands of holidaymakers and sportspeople. These Winter Olympics are the first ever to rely on 100% fake snow. And while snowmaking isn’t as environmentally catastrophic as it might first seem, it’s not without drawbacks.</p>
<p>First, artificial snow is made of water, which is undeniably a critical resource. The International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) sustainability <a href="https://olympics.com/ioc/news/beijing-2022-pre-games-sustainability-report-outlines-climate-solutions-development-of-winter-sports-and-regional-regeneration-in-china">report</a> for this year’s games estimates the city of Zhangjiakou, the epicentre of the Beijing games, will use 730,000m³ of surface water for snowmaking alone (almost 300 Olympic size swimming pools).</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/two-thirds-of-earths-land-is-on-pace-to-lose-water-as-the-climate-warms-thats-a-problem-for-people-crops-and-forests-151984">Two-thirds of Earth's land is on pace to lose water as the climate warms – that's a problem for people, crops and forests</a>
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<p>The amount of water used across the entire Beijing area will be much greater (although there are significant efforts to <a href="https://olympics.com/ioc/news/beijing-2022-pre-games-sustainability-report-outlines-climate-solutions-development-of-winter-sports-and-regional-regeneration-in-china">recapture snow melt</a>, and avoid using an excessive amount of drinking water to make snow).</p>
<p>Second, in warmer climates chemical additives are required to help snow form and stay frozen. And while these aren’t actively toxic, there’s still doubt <a href="https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/resources/highschool/chemmatters/past-issues/2018-2019/december-2018/artificial-snow-a-slippery-slope.html">regarding their safety</a>.</p>
<p>Finally, snow machines produce <em>a lot</em> of snow. Early reports from Chinese media claimed <a href="http://www.china.org.cn/sports/2015-07/02/content_35963251.htm">only 200,000m³ of water</a> would be needed for snowmaking. But the <a href="https://olympics.com/ioc/news/beijing-2022-pre-games-sustainability-report-outlines-climate-solutions-development-of-winter-sports-and-regional-regeneration-in-china">IOC’s pre-game report</a> indicates this figure is upwards of 800,000m³. </p>
<p>Depending on which figure is used, the density of the snow created, and how much water is lost to evaporation, the total amount of snow produced could be anywhere from 0.5 to 3 million cubic metres. So while the machines do produce snow efficiently, the total energy usage <a href="https://files.danfoss.com/download/Drives/ITDDPC400A102_TechnoAlpin_LR.pdf">is still significant</a>. </p>
<p>According to the IOC, in Beijing this electricity demand is being met through <a href="https://olympics.com/ioc/news/beijing-2022-pre-games-sustainability-report-outlines-climate-solutions-development-of-winter-sports-and-regional-regeneration-in-china">100% sustainable production</a>. This is encouraging, and will hopefully help accelerate the global adoption of environmentally friendly technologies.</p>
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<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-do-olympic-freestyle-skiers-produce-their-amazing-tricks-a-biomechanics-expert-explains-176544">How do Olympic freestyle skiers produce their amazing tricks? A biomechanics expert explains</a>
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<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176795/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In Beijing’s climate, you could coat a Sydney apartment in a few inches of snow with the same energy the air conditioning would use in an hour.Chiara Neto, Professor of Physical Chemistry and Australian Research Council Future Fellow, University of SydneyIsaac Gresham, Postdoctral Research Fellow, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1768122022-02-10T12:19:56Z2022-02-10T12:19:56ZIf Russia invades Ukraine, what could happen to natural gas supplies to Europe? Podcast<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445643/original/file-20220210-17-1rp7tnh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C60%2C4459%2C2903&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Europe relies on Russia for about 40% of its natural gas. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-illustration/valve-on-main-gas-pipeline-between-2104791914">Victoria Viper B/Shutterstock</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>As frantic diplomatic efforts continue to avert a Russian invasion of Ukraine, Europe’s reliance on Russian gas supplies – and what would happen to them in the case of a war – remains an ever-present threat. In this episode of <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/the-conversation-weekly-98901">The Conversation Weekly</a>, we speak to two experts on the geopolitics of natural gas about the history of the energy relationship between Russia and Europe, and the role gas supplies play in the current diplomatic efforts to avoid war. </p>
<p>And, the Beijing Winter Olympics are the first games to use 100% artificial snow. We talk to a sports ecologist about what that might mean for the athletes – and for the environment around the Olympic sites. </p>
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<p><iframe id="tc-infographic-561" class="tc-infographic" height="100" src="https://cdn.theconversation.com/infographics/561/4fbbd099d631750693d02bac632430b71b37cd5f/site/index.html" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Russia has been supplying western Europe with natural gas for more than 50 years. “The precise date is 1968,” says Michael Bradshaw. “That’s when the Soviet Union reached agreement with Austria to deliver natural gas by pipeline.” Bradshaw, a professor of global energy at Warwick Business School at the University of Warwick in the UK, says it’s a relationship that has “weathered a number of geopolitical crises”, including the collapse of the Soviet Union. </p>
<p>Today, Russia supplies Europe with around <a href="https://www.bruegel.org/2022/01/can-europe-survive-painlessly-without-russian-gas/">40% of its natural gas</a>, predominantly through pipelines. And according to the <a href="https://a9w7k6q9.stackpathcdn.com/wpcms/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Gas-Quarterly-Review-Issue-16.pdf">Oxford Institute for Energy Studies</a>, in 2021, 22% of the gas Russia delivered to Europe – including Turkey – passed through Ukraine. That makes the question of what would happen to these gas flows in the event of a Russian invasion particularly urgent. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-how-an-armed-conflict-could-play-out-175274">Ukraine: how an armed conflict could play out</a>
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<p>The future of Nord Stream 2, a new pipeline taking gas directly from Russia direct to northern Germany, is at risk. “It’s become a symbol of how Russia is using natural gas to play out the European states against each other and to divide the European Union,” says Anastasiya Shapochkina, a lecturer in geopolitical at Sciences Po in France. </p>
<p>Construction of Nord Stream 2 finished in late 2021, but regulatory delays mean no gas is yet flowing through the pipeline. In early February, at a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/02/07/remarks-by-president-biden-and-chancellor-scholz-of-the-federal-republic-of-germany-at-press-conference/">at the White House</a>, US President Joe Biden said if Russia did invade Ukraine “there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.” Scholz opted instead for <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/germanys-olaf-scholz-responds-to-ukraine-criticism/a-60681953">strategic ambiguity</a> about the pipeline’s future in the case of a war. </p>
<p>Bradshaw says if Russia did invade, the consensus among analysts is that “it’s highly unlikely that either side will want to disrupt the flow of natural gas – both sides have got too much to lose from doing that.” He says Gazprom, the Russian energy giant which controls the pipeline gas supply to Europe, relies on the income it makes from these gas exports to supply gas at a lower price to domestic consumers in Russia. But with global energy prices rises and the gas market very tight, if the EU imposed economic sanctions that stopped the flow of gas, Bradshaw says “that would make a bad situation even worse” for Europe. </p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/ukraine-russia-probably-wont-turn-off-the-gas-but-the-problem-wont-go-away-any-time-soon-176817">Ukraine: Russia probably won't turn off the gas, but the problem won't go away any time soon</a>
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<p>For Shapochkina, the most optimistic scenario is that the “energy economic interdependence between Russia and Europe can be a containment factor on the conflict in Ukraine.” However, she says what will be acceptable to European leaders, and Germany in particular, remains an open question. “We could envision the scenario when Russia could be allowed, because of the energy security of Europe, to invade all it wants and still trade with Europe, and even use the Ukrainian gas system to potentially increase its volumes of exports to Europe,” she says. </p>
<p>Longer term, how much Europe will rely on natural gas from Russia depends upon the role gas plays in the energy transition towards renewables – something <a href="https://theconversation.com/natural-gas-is-a-fossil-fuel-but-the-eu-will-count-it-as-a-green-investment-heres-why-175867">currently causing controversy within the EU</a>. But in the short term, <a href="https://theconversation.com/can-the-us-find-enough-natural-gas-sources-to-neutralize-russias-energy-leverage-over-europe-175824">Europe and its allies</a> are scrambling to secure alternative sources of gas should Russia reduce its gas flows. </p>
<p>In our second story in this episode, what is the environmental impact of a winter Olympics in Beijing with 100% artificial snow? Madeline Orr, a lecturer in sports ecology at Loughborough University London in the UK, recently published research on <a href="https://www.sportecology.org/_files/ugd/a700be_9aa3ec697a39446eb11b8330aec19e30.pdf">athletes’ views of competing on artificial snow</a> – which is around 70% ice. “We had a lot of athletes who are quite excited to be competing on artificial snow, because it’s fast and it’s hard,” she says, although some of those competing in aerial events are “more concerned about the injury” from falling on a harder surface. She also explains what all this artificial snow will mean for the environment around the Beijing’s Olympic venues. (Listen from 30m30)</p>
<p>And finally, Haley Lewis for The Conversation in the Canadian capital Ottawa recommends some recent analysis of protests by truckers against COVID-19 restrictions that continue to block the city’s streets. (Listen from 42m50)</p>
<p>This episode of The Conversation Weekly was produced by Mend Mariwany and Gemma Ware, with sound design by Eloise Stevens. Our theme music is by Neeta Sarl. You can find us on Twitter <a href="https://twitter.com/TC_Audio">@TC_Audio</a>, on Instagram at <a href="https://www.instagram.com/theconversationdotcom/?hl=en">theconversationdotcom</a> or <a href="mailto:podcast@theconversation.com">via email</a>. You can also sign up to The Conversation’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/newsletter?utm_campaign=PodcastTCWeekly&utm_content=newsletter&utm_source=podcast">free daily email here</a>. </p>
<p>Newsclips in this episode are from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOZIc9kbLl4">BBC News</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68uA1qJ2uUg">Associated Press</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh77BLp-SFo">CG</a><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRjiYRzeJls">TN</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3fUd8hmgy8">CNBC</a> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7JLWZN47Jg">Television</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FIm3YzGiYcg">NDTV</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygM3cdo51w4">DW News</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ClWDOZ85SmE">NBC News</a> and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fzrayjS6Y3A">WION</a>.</p>
<p><em>You can listen to The Conversation Weekly via any of the apps listed above, download it directly via our <a href="https://feeds.acast.com/public/shows/60087127b9687759d637bade">RSS feed</a>, or find out how else to <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-listen-to-the-conversations-podcasts-154131">listen here</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176812/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Bradshaw receives funding from Natural Environment Research Council in relation to its Unconventional Hydrocarbons in the UK Energy System Research Programme and Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council in relation to his role as Co-Director for the UK Energy Research Centre. Anastasiya Shapochkina is a director of Eastern Circles, a geo-economics think tank on the former Soviet space. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Madeleine Orr does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Plus, the Beijing Winter Olympics are using 100% artificial snow: what does that mean for the environment, and the athletes? Listen to The Conversation Weekly podcast.Gemma Ware, Editor and Co-Host, The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The ConversationDaniel Merino, Assistant Science Editor & Co-Host of The Conversation Weekly Podcast, The ConversationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1765442022-02-10T02:40:11Z2022-02-10T02:40:11ZHow do Olympic freestyle skiers produce their amazing tricks? A biomechanics expert explains<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445303/original/file-20220209-17-ia0056.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C7%2C4992%2C3622&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Yosuke Hayasaka/AP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>There have been some incredible acrobatics on display in Beijing, with Australia’s Jakara Anthony <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-02-07/smale-jakara-anthony/100809298">scoring gold</a> in the women’s moguls this week. </p>
<p>How do these athletes pull off such incredible feats of manoeuvrability, and land them (mostly)? </p>
<h2>The mechanics of freestyle acrobatics</h2>
<p>Freestyle skiers and snowboarders have to produce as much lift-off force as they can before they leave the ground, as it’s impossible to generate lift once airborne. </p>
<p>They do this by optimising their take-off speed before the ramp and extending their knees and hips when they jump. They can also initiate rotation just before take-off, by leaning forwards, backwards, or even slightly sideways.</p>
<p>You’ll have some sense of how this works if you’ve ever tried a somersault or backflip on on a trampoline. But the goal for professional skiers is to control the rotation with acute precision. </p>
<p>The more they lean, the greater the rotational force and the faster their spin will become. This rotational momentum, created just before lift-off, is all the athlete has to execute their aerial trick.</p>
<p>Many trampolines have nets to protect jumpers from the consequences of this going awry. But out on the snow, and with the world watching, there’s little room for error. Perfect posture is very important. </p>
<p>Once they’re in the air, they can start to tune their body to complete the desired manoeuvre. This often involves changing their posture mid-flight, such as by tucking their limbs in tight to increase the rate of spin, as needed for a somersault. </p>
<p>Part of athletes’ training is learning exactly what sort of posture causes what sort of rotation in the air – and how they need to tuck, extend or position their limbs to optimise the rotation. Add skis and poles or a snowboard to the picture, and this exercise becomes much more complex. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-snowboarding-became-a-marquee-event-at-the-winter-olympics-but-lost-some-of-its-cool-factor-in-the-process-175053">How snowboarding became a marquee event at the Winter Olympics – but lost some of its cool factor in the process</a>
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<h2>Twisting and turning</h2>
<p>It doesn’t stop there though. Sometimes a somersault will also incorporate twisting – rotation along the long axis of the body. This is where things get even more challenging. </p>
<p>Remember how athletes can’t really create external force in the air? How do they change their rotation if they can’t push or pull against something solid? </p>
<p>Well, this process also begins just as they’re leaving the ground. They will try to set up a second rotation axis before they take-off, leaning slightly to the right or left, or pushing off harder with one foot than the other, to initiate the twist. </p>
<p>If they’re already in mid-air, they may strategically manipulate their arms and hips to change somersault rotation into twisting, or vice versa. </p>
<p>You may have seen an athlete moving their arms and hips in an asymmetrical fashion at the top of their run. That’s not them practising their latest dance move – they’re rehearsing the movements required to change rotation after take-off. </p>
<p>Cats can rotate their torsos incredibly well while in the air. That’s how they land on their feet!</p>
<h2>The final step</h2>
<p>Now the most important bit: landing safely.</p>
<p>While a freestyle athlete is upside down, in the midst of their trick, they need to simultaneously look for a spot on the ground to plant their feet. You may have noticed them grab their skis or snowboard while looking at the landing. </p>
<p>To slow their twisting, they can spread our their arms. Similarly, to slow down a somersault they’ll spread out their arms and legs to slow the rotation. This is called increasing the moment of inertia.</p>
<p>Once they’re in an extended posture, instinct and gravity do the rest, bringing them safely (mostly) back to earth. Their knees and hips work as natural shock absorbers to help slow their fall. Touch down!</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/your-guide-to-the-best-figure-skating-at-the-beijing-winter-olympics-through-the-eyes-of-a-dancer-176229">Your guide to the best figure skating at the Beijing Winter Olympics – through the eyes of a dancer</a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin Netto receives funding from industry and government to support his work. He is affiliated with Exercise and Sports Science Australia as a member of their research committee. </span></em></p>Executing the perfect manoeuvre on the slopes requires foresight, technical skill and being able to think on the go.Kevin Netto, Associate Professor, Curtin School of Allied Health and Curtin enAble Institute, Curtin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1766192022-02-08T18:02:15Z2022-02-08T18:02:15ZA brief history of African nations at the Olympic Winter Games<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/445136/original/file-20220208-21-cjab8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong at the 2010 winter Olympics.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">OLIVIER MORIN/AFP via Getty Images)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>A record number of eight African countries competed at the <a href="https://olympics.com/en/olympic-games/pyeongchang-2018">2018 Olympic Winter Games</a> in PyeongChang, South Korea. At the 2022 <a href="https://olympics.com/en/">Beijing winter games</a>, currently underway, Africa is represented by <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/beijing-2022-africas-winter-athletes-go-for-glory/g-60658554">six athletes</a> from five countries: Eritrea, Ghana, Madagascar, Morocco and Nigeria. Five are competing in Alpine (downhill) skiing and one in cross country skiing. </p>
<p>These athletes are not touted to win medals in 2022. But, in general, the overarching theme with African participation in the winter Olympics is in taking part and not winning, as <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09523367.2020.1854230">my study</a> of the continent’s history at the winter games shows.</p>
<p>In contrast, African countries have done relatively well at the summer Olympic Games, particularly in the middle and long distance running events. Since 1908, they have won over <a href="https://olympics.com/en/olympic-games/olympic-results">400 medals</a> at the summer Olympics. Athletes representing African countries have not had any medal success at the Olympic Winter Games so far. </p>
<p>Given the continent’s geography, this is not surprising. The <a href="https://en.climate-data.org/africa/">average annual temperature</a> in Africa is 25.7 degrees Celsius. The difference between the average warmest and coldest month in Africa is a mere 1.9 degrees Celsius and snow is a <a href="https://theconversation.com/snowfall-in-the-sahara-desert-an-unusual-weather-phenomenon-176037">rarity</a>. The continent therefore lacks the climate for all winter sports contested outside on snow or ice. Despite this, athletes representing African countries have contributed to the Olympic movement’s goals of universality and inclusion. </p>
<p>The majority of these Olympians had strong ties with snowbound countries in the northern hemisphere. Many were born to parents with respective European and African heritages and left Africa at a young age to live in the northern hemisphere. Or they left the continent to pursue education and training in regions of the world known for snowy winters. In many instances they returned to Africa to represent their respective countries at the games. </p>
<p>A total of 15 African countries have participated at the winter Olympics in 58 years, from 1960 to 2022. Despite not winning medals, individual athletes have found success and acted as trailblazers in other ways. </p>
<h2>Most competitive countries</h2>
<p>Of the 15 countries to represent Africa, only seven have participated in more than one winter Olympics. South Africa was the first African country to participate. Given the political boycotts against <a href="https://www.sahistory.org.za/article/history-apartheid-south-africa">apartheid</a> in South Africa, the country’s first appearance at the 1960 games in Squaw Valley in the US was also their last until democracy. South Africa was <a href="https://olympics.com/en/featured-news/why-south-africa-barred-from-the-olympics-apartheid">barred</a> from the 1964 games and suspended from the <a href="https://olympics.com/ioc/olympic-movement">Olympic Movement</a> in 1970. The country’s return to the winter Olympics was in Lillehammer, Norway in 1994.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/snowfall-in-the-sahara-desert-an-unusual-weather-phenomenon-176037">Snowfall in the Sahara desert: an unusual weather phenomenon</a>
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<p>Morocco became the second African country to compete at the winter Olympics when a team of five <a href="https://www.britannica.com/sports/Alpine-skiing">Alpine</a> skiers represented the country at the 1968 games in Grenoble, France. It was just over a decade prior, in 1956, that the country gained its <a href="https://www.britannica.com/place/Morocco/Independent-Morocco">independence</a> from French colonial rule. The <a href="https://arabcenterdc.org/resource/the-polisario-front-morocco-and-the-western-sahara-conflict/">Western Sahara conflict</a> contributed to Morocco not competing at the winter Olympics for the next 16 years. On the country’s return at the Sarajevo games in Yugoslavia in 1984, a four-man team represented Morocco, once again in Alpine skiing.</p>
<p>Senegal made its first of five appearances at the winter Olympics in 1984 in Sarajevo. Three athletes make up the sum total of Senegal’s participation at five different Olympic Winter Games that span a period of 26 years. Two of the three Senegalese athletes had strong links with countries in the northern hemisphere, both growing up in the Alps. This opportunity enhanced their ability to train and prepare for the games. </p>
<p>While Algeria has not accomplished any significant results at the winter games in 1992, 2006 and 2010, the country has at least moved past the ‘once-off’ appearance scenario, a feat many other African countries have not yet achieved.</p>
<h2>Individual feats</h2>
<p>A characteristic of many African countries’ participation is that their teams consisted of only one athlete. Kenya was represented by a sole representative at all four of the winter games the country competed in between 1998 and 2018. Cross-country skier <a href="https://olympics.com/en/original-series/episode/the-legend-of-kenya-s-philip-boit-impossible-moments">Philip Boit</a> represented Kenya in 1998, 2002 and 2006, while Alpine skier <a href="https://www.newframe.com/sabrina-simader-kenyas-proud-snow-leopard/">Sabrina Simader</a> was the sole Kenyan representative at the 2018 Games in South Korea.</p>
<p>Madagascar has competed in three winter games, in 2006, 2018 and 2022. Alpine skier <a href="https://www.eurosport.com/olympics/athletes/profile/clerc-mialitiana-1061565/">Mialitiana Clerc</a>, their sole representative, will be the only African woman competing in 2022. </p>
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<span class="caption">Mialitiana Clerc of Madagascar, the only African woman at Beijing 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">TOM PENNINGTON/Getty Images</span></span>
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<p>In both the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver, as well as in PyeongChang in 2018, Ghana was represented by a single athlete. In 2010 it was Alpine skier <a href="http://en.espn.co.uk/more/sport/story/8846.html">Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong</a>, who was born in Scotland to exiled Ghanaian parents. It marked the first time African competitors were measured against other athletes from Africa – creating a race within a race. In 2018 <a href="https://www.frimpong.com">Akwasi Frimpong</a> became the second Ghanaian to compete at the winter Olympics in <a href="https://www.britannica.com/sports/skeleton-sledding">skeleton sledding</a>. Frimpong was born and raised in Ghana but moved to the Netherlands at a young age.</p>
<p>Togo’s maiden participation came at the 2014 winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia, when the country was represented by two female athletes – cross country skier Mathilde-Amivi Petitjean and Alpine skier Alessia Afi Dipol. Only one athlete ever represented Ethiopia at either games in which the country participated to date. <a href="https://olympics.com/en/athletes/robel-teklemariam">Robel Teklemariam</a> competed at both the 2006 Turin games and the 2010 Vancouver games in cross country skiing.</p>
<p>Based on geographical, political, social and economic factors, Egypt, Swaziland, Cameroon and Zimbabwe have all been one-time participants at the winter Olympics. These countries helped contribute to constant African representation at the winter games.</p>
<h2>A constant presence</h2>
<p>A Olympic Winter Games highlight for Africa came in 2018 when a record number of eight countries lined up for the opening ceremony in South Korea. Athletes from Nigeria, Eritrea, Ghana, Kenya, Madagascar, South Africa, Morocco and Togo represented the continent. After the hype of what many people considered as the most “African Winter Olympics” ever in South Korea in 2018, only five African countries will be present at the Winter Games in Beijing in 2022. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-will-china-handle-the-dual-threats-of-covid-and-political-protests-at-the-winter-olympics-175637">How will China handle the dual threats of COVID and political protests at the Winter Olympics?</a>
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<p>But since 1984, at least one African nation has competed at each subsequent winter Olympics. </p>
<p>The lack of climate for winter sports such as bobsleigh, skiing and snowboarding limits the level of participation in winter sports. However, globalisation and the relatively limited access to tertiary institutions in Africa have brought young African athletes in contact with many forms of winter sport while studying or working abroad, predominantly in the northern hemisphere.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176619/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Cobus Rademeyer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There’s very little snow in Africa but, even so, since 1984 at least one African nation has competed at each winter Olympics and African athletes have been trailblazers.Cobus Rademeyer, Senior lecturer, Sol Plaatje UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1763902022-02-04T14:07:01Z2022-02-04T14:07:01ZAs China welcomes the world to Winter Olympics, its economy is ever more isolated from the west<p>As the Beijing Winter Olympics get underway, all eyes are on China. There has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/30/sport-politics-and-covid-collide-at-the-beijing-winter-olympics">lots of coverage</a> about <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/at-beijing-olympics-xi-and-putin-strive-for-unity-against-us/6426270.html">China’s chilly relationship</a> in the west and its persecution of <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/2/chinese-exiles-boycott-beijing-olympics-over-uyghur-genocide">the Uighur</a> and other minorities, but there is also much to be said about the Chinese economy. </p>
<p>China’s great rise over the past several decades has been the great economic success of our times, lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and giving the global economy wheels in the years after the financial crisis of 2007-09. </p>
<p>Over the past decade, however, the <a href="https://www.boj.or.jp/en/research/wps_rev/wps_2021/data/wp21e07.pdf">miracle became</a> a bit more ordinary as growth gradually slowed. China found it difficult to keep increasing exports at the same pace year after year, particularly in the face of <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47492397">weaker international demand</a> for its products – not least because of the trade war with the US. <a href="https://theconversation.com/chinas-long-term-problems-are-forcing-it-to-rethink-the-whole-economy-173443">Other issues</a> have included an ageing population and the fact that growth had become increasingly dependent on debt, which wasn’t sustainable. </p>
<p><strong>China’s economic growth 1997-2021</strong></p>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://tradingeconomics.com/china/gdp-growth-annual">Trading Economics/National Bureau of Statistics of China</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
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<p><a href="https://www.ft.com/content/e45496ec-82ff-4586-a062-20124739fcc1">China did</a> seem to have weathered the pandemic better than many major economies, having contained the virus so aggressively. Yet the picture has since deteriorated as renewed <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/11/millions-more-chinese-ordered-into-lockdown-to-fight-covid-outbreaks">domestic COVID outbreaks</a>, including the new omicron variant, have caused fresh economic disruption. </p>
<p>Omicron’s effect on other major economies is not good news for Chinese exports either. Neither is the resurgence of inflation in many countries, which has prompted the US Federal Reserve and other central banks to threaten higher interest rates and an end to creating money via <a href="https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/quantitative-easing">quantitative easing</a>. This is likely to further dampen demand for Chinese goods. </p>
<p>China’s debt has also become an even bigger issue. Leading property developer Evergrande’s financial difficulties in 2021 made headlines, but excessive debt <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/evergrande-just-tip-china-debt-001209129.html">is rife</a> throughout the property sector and beyond. If the bubble bursts, it could lead to a prolonged downturn that significantly damages the wider economy. </p>
<p>The government has been <a href="https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/chinas-debt-reduction-campaign-is-making-progress-but-at-a-cost/">pressuring major companies</a> to reduce their debts, while also restricting borrowing in the property sector and cracking down on informal lending across the country. It also sent a warning to excess borrowers through its willingness to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/09/business/china-evergrande-default.html">let Evergrande default</a>. </p>
<p>Weaker exports and reducing debt mean that China is heading for a slowdown: the World Bank <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/opinion/2022/01/12/rebalancing-act-china-s-2022-outlook#:%7E:text=Following%20a%20strong%208%20percent,of%20output%20at%20full%20capacity.&text=In%20the%20face%20of%20these,nonetheless%20keep%20a%20steady%20hand.">projects that</a> its economic growth will be just over 5% in 2022, compared to 8% in 2021. </p>
<h2>China’s challenges</h2>
<p>More broadly, China’s traditional growth model based on exports, infrastructure and real estate investment looks like it has run its course. The nation is facing a difficult rebalancing act as it aims to transition to relying much more on Chinese households consuming goods and services, while also <a href="https://theconversation.com/chinas-energy-crisis-shows-just-how-hard-it-will-be-to-reach-net-zero-169478">having to move</a> to a much less carbon-intensive economy.</p>
<p>Unfortunately for the ruling Communist Party, the best way to achieve this rebalancing is arguably to implement reforms that would limit the government’s influence in Chinese life. For example, the <a href="https://www.worldbank.org/en/country/china/publication/china-economic-update-december-2021">World Bank thinks</a> China needs to make it easier for companies to fail and to allow more private competition in sectors like education and healthcare as a way of driving up productivity. It also recommends enabling workers to move around the country by abolishing the <em>hukou</em> registration system in cities, since this system stipulates where someone is permanently resident. </p>
<p>Some World Bank recommendations do involve more government intervention, such as making the tax system more progressive to encourage consumers to spend more, and raising government spending on health and education so that people don’t need to save so much. Generally speaking, however, more liberalisation is the order of the day – and looks like the right way forward from my point of view. </p>
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<p>Yet China has become more interventionist in the Xi era, cracking down on everything from <a href="https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/world/chinas-crackdown-on-its-tech-billionaires-marks-a-strategic-watershed-for-xi-jinping">tech billionaires</a> to the number of hours that <a href="https://qz.com/2056875/chinas-crackdown-on-video-games-is-getting-more-serious/">children can play</a> video games each day. Meanwhile, China’s <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00191-7">zero-COVID strategy</a> has involved tightly sealed borders, swift citywide lockdowns and mass testing. </p>
<p>China adopted this strategy partly out of fear that its poor healthcare system could be completely overwhelmed by COVID, and more recently as a way of ensuring that the Winter Olympics proceed smoothly. Yet such is the climate in China that <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/0e6914ed-3ce5-4f7f-ab91-ce7b0ad68f2c">some commentators fear</a> that it will not open up again, that the health crisis is turning into a political crisis of more committed isolation. </p>
<p>China therefore finds itself at a crossroads. On the one hand, it wants a greater role in the global economy, as can be seen through its <a href="https://greenfdc.org/brief-china-belt-and-road-initiative-bri-investment-report-2021/">Belt and Road Initiative</a> to drive infrastructure development around the world in exchange for closer ties with Beijing. </p>
<p>But there is a contradiction between continuing to engage with global trade and the Chinese government’s instinct towards technological self-sufficiency and homegrown innovation. Trade liberalisation also requires, for example, opening up the banking sector to foreign lenders to make it more efficient. Yet that is a long way from Beijing’s interventionist approach. Indeed, the fact that the banks, which are partly owned by the state, were given mandates to lend to state-owned companies with poor financial status was the cause of many the debt problems in the first place. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, the indications are that China is more likely to move towards greater isolationism from the west. This might mean restricting people visiting the country and concentrating more on domestic consumption than global trade. We might see it further tacking away from globalisation via trade wars, as well as imposing greater <a href="https://www.centralbanking.com/central-banks/currency/7860946/chinas-capital-controls-here-to-stay">capital controls</a> to make it harder for money to get in and out of the country. Obviously, China is partly acting out of provocation from the west, but its overall policy shift has been to a large extent homegrown. </p>
<p>As with the winter Olympics, where China is trying to keep the athletes separate from its people, the nation is also behaving in a similar way with regard to the rest of the world. What should be a celebration of international cooperation is happening at a time when the exact opposite is taking place.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/176390/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kate Phylaktis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>China is at a crossroads: it is retreating from the world’s major economies at the very moment it arguably needs to open up.Kate Phylaktis, Professor of International Finance and Director, Emerging Markets Group, City, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1759762022-02-03T19:47:19Z2022-02-03T19:47:19ZBeijing’s scant snow offers a glimpse at the uncertainty — and risks — of future Winter Olympics<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444152/original/file-20220202-23996-fsfnyj.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=103%2C39%2C5221%2C3512&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The alpine skiing course at the 2022 Winter Olympics, on Feb. 2, 2022, in the Yanqing district of Beijing. All the snow at this year's Olympic venues is machine-made.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Robert F. Bukaty)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The postcards and posters from most Winter Olympics call attention to the thick powder and ice-covered mountains we expect from winter mountain sports. But this year will be a little different. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444135/original/file-20220202-23-n91bt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A poster of the Olympic bobsled run in Lake Placid." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444135/original/file-20220202-23-n91bt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444135/original/file-20220202-23-n91bt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=887&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444135/original/file-20220202-23-n91bt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=887&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444135/original/file-20220202-23-n91bt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=887&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444135/original/file-20220202-23-n91bt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1115&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444135/original/file-20220202-23-n91bt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1115&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444135/original/file-20220202-23-n91bt0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1115&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Most Winter Olympics call to mind snow-covered mountains and forests.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://loc.gov/pictures/resource/cph.3k00003/">(Library of Congress)</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CZUQxmEu0Tx">Social media posts from some of the athletes</a> training at the Yanqing zone, about 75 kilometres northwest of Beijing, show a thin ribbon of white snow surrounded by brown mountains. Yanqing and Zhangjiakou, the two sites chosen for the skiing, snowboarding, bobsledding and luge events (among others), lack natural snowfall, making Beijing 2022 the <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-01-22/beijing-winter-olympics-first-to-rely-on-artificial-snow">first Winter Olympics to be held entirely on machine-made snow</a>.</p>
<p>But as temperatures continue to rise globally, it’s also a glimpse at what future Winter Olympics might look like. Climate change is an ongoing challenge for all contemporary winter sports. </p>
<p>Popular summer training venues, such as <a href="https://snowbrains.com/horstman-glacier-end-summer-skiing/">Whistler’s Horstman glacier</a> , are rapidly melting away, and World Cup ski competitions, including a <a href="https://www.eagletribune.com/dangerous-snow-surface-forces-world-cup-ski-race-to-stop/article_0cee4edf-812b-5644-85dd-c70dda4fb2be.html">recent slalom event in Zagreb, Croatia</a>, are being cancelled due to unusually warm temperatures and unsafe snow conditions. </p>
<p>As a climate scientist and former elite ski racer, I’m not only interested in which venues will have enough snow to host races in the future, but whether they will be safe for competitions. Some athletes may skip races they deem too dangerous, but the Winter Olympics, considered by many to be the pinnacle of sport, is where athletes put themselves on the line in hopes of winning a gold medal. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2021.2023480">As one participant in our study noted</a>, “Who’s going to qualify for the Games and then sit it out?” </p>
<h2>Unreliable winters</h2>
<p>Recent Winter Olympics, including those in Vancouver in 2010 and Sochi in 2014, have been held under temperatures far warmer than those locations experienced throughout the past century. While Games held in the 1920s to 1950s had an average February daytime temperature of 0.4 C, average February temperatures increased to 3.1 C between 1960 and 1990. Since the beginning of the 21st century, host locations, including Beijing, have a current average February temperature of 6.3 C. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A skier angles around a gate" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444408/original/file-20220203-17-19s2ybv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444408/original/file-20220203-17-19s2ybv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444408/original/file-20220203-17-19s2ybv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444408/original/file-20220203-17-19s2ybv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=426&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444408/original/file-20220203-17-19s2ybv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444408/original/file-20220203-17-19s2ybv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444408/original/file-20220203-17-19s2ybv.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=535&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Before author Natalie Knowles became a climate scientist, she competed on Canada’s Alpine Ski Team at the World Junior Championships and World University Games, and raced for the University of Denver.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Natalie Knowles)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>These rapidly rising temperatures are making winter increasingly unreliable for sports. Artificial snow-making now joins indoor ice rinks and refrigerated bobsled tracks as an <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003003694-8/winter-sports-climate-change-natalie-knowles-daniel-scott-robert-steiger">essential element</a> of weather risk management for winter sports. </p>
<p>Even with top-of-the-line snow-making systems in place, recent Olympics have had to resort to <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/winter/olympics-climate-change-future-1.6334727">last-minute adaptations</a>, such as helicoptering in snow, building jumps and halfpipes out of plywood and hay bales or cancelling pre-competition training. </p>
<p>These improvisations allow the event to go ahead, but they can put athlete safety and performance at risk. When skiers streak down a mountain at 150 kilometres per hour or a <a href="https://www.aspentimes.com/sports/james-looking-to-keep-up-with-hiranos-triple-cork-in-x-games-superpipe/">snowboarder lands a triple cork in a superpipe</a>, they expect to be competing on consistent, safe and fair conditions. </p>
<p>Cold temperatures allow for a smooth and firm surface, whereas warm temperatures lead to soft and wet snow that degrades throughout the competition and hinders athletes’ performance. Warm conditions can <a href="https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/50/17/1069.short">increase the risk of injuries</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444375/original/file-20220203-17-1oainfr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A graphic showing that the ideal temperatures for competition is -10 C to -1 C." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444375/original/file-20220203-17-1oainfr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444375/original/file-20220203-17-1oainfr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444375/original/file-20220203-17-1oainfr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444375/original/file-20220203-17-1oainfr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444375/original/file-20220203-17-1oainfr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444375/original/file-20220203-17-1oainfr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444375/original/file-20220203-17-1oainfr.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Ahtlete-coach rating of temperatures for safe and fair competition.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Natalie Knowles)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One downhill skier in our study said, “Heat can just create dangerous conditions. Lots of torn knee ligaments happen in sloppy wet snow.” Freestyle snowboarders noted that “too warm is the worst because it makes the course super slushy, the speed slows down and you get a bunch of <a href="https://www.abc-of-snowboarding.com/snowboarding-dictionary-snowboarding-terms-and-definitions/">bomb holes</a> in the landings, which are unsafe.” Nordic skiers added dehydration and heat stroke as additional risks from hot temperatures. </p>
<p>Warm temperatures can also compromise the integrity of the competition: the first athlete may get a smooth un-tracked surface, while the 30th or 50th competitor must contend with the bumps and ruts carved into the track from the previous participants. </p>
<h2>Gold-medal venue: Sapporo</h2>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13683500.2018.1436161">Previous research</a> used climate thresholds, including minimum snow coverage and maximum temperatures, to identify whether it would be feasible to hold a Winter Olympics at a former venue in the future — that is whether a venue could operate under warmer conditions. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444376/original/file-20220203-21-nm4qak.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444376/original/file-20220203-21-nm4qak.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444376/original/file-20220203-21-nm4qak.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444376/original/file-20220203-21-nm4qak.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444376/original/file-20220203-21-nm4qak.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=600&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444376/original/file-20220203-21-nm4qak.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444376/original/file-20220203-21-nm4qak.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444376/original/file-20220203-21-nm4qak.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=754&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Athlete-coach ratings of conditions that influence competition safety and fairness.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Natalie Knowles)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>My colleagues and I went further. We incorporated the perspectives of 339 athletes and coaches from 20 countries to determine whether a venue could hold a safe and fair competition in a warmer world.</p>
<p>Our study included more nuanced and qualitative characteristics of conditions such as wet snow, rain, wind, fog and machine-made snow, as well as common adaptations such as altering course starts, cancelling training or chemically treating the snow surface to try to maintain frozen winter-like conditions. Using the input of athletes and coaches, we modelled these climate thresholds in all the current and former Olympic Winter Games locations to determine which ones would remain viable in the future.</p>
<p>The results are both daunting and encouraging. If greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise under a so-called “business as usual” scenario, only one former Olympic host, Sapporo, Japan, will remain a reliable place to host outdoor winter sports by 2080. </p>
<p>But if we can reduce global emissions to achieve the Paris Agreement target of 2 C by following low-emission pathways, eight of the 21 former Winter Olympic locations will continue to have the cold temperatures and snow quality necessary for elite level snow sports. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Maps of North America, Europe and Asia showing past Olympic sites and whether they are reliable, marginal or unreliable sites under future emissions scenarios." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444373/original/file-20220203-21-1vqueyk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444373/original/file-20220203-21-1vqueyk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1000&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444373/original/file-20220203-21-1vqueyk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1000&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444373/original/file-20220203-21-1vqueyk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1000&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444373/original/file-20220203-21-1vqueyk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1257&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444373/original/file-20220203-21-1vqueyk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1257&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444373/original/file-20220203-21-1vqueyk.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1257&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Climate reliability of Winter Olympic hosts for fair and safe snow sports competitions.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Natalie Knowles)</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Beacon of hope</h2>
<p>Some sporting events, such as international ski and snowboard championships, only need suitable conditions for one or two sports. They also have a range of adaptation options, such as postponing the event or changing venues at the last minute. But the Olympics are planned years in advance with limited opportunity to delay competitions or alter venues if the weather is poor. </p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444155/original/file-20220202-5180-1n0tx8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A black and white photo of a man skiing." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444155/original/file-20220202-5180-1n0tx8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/444155/original/file-20220202-5180-1n0tx8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444155/original/file-20220202-5180-1n0tx8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444155/original/file-20220202-5180-1n0tx8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=403&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444155/original/file-20220202-5180-1n0tx8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444155/original/file-20220202-5180-1n0tx8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/444155/original/file-20220202-5180-1n0tx8e.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=507&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mike Lafferty, from the U.S. Olympic Team, trains on the Mt. Eniwa track at the Sapporo 1972 Winter Olympics in Japan.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Michel Lipchitz)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The fate of the Winter Olympics may seem low on the list of priorities as climate-related disasters fill the news, but the Olympics have always provided a beacon of hope. The <a href="https://olympics.com/ioc/sustainability">International Olympic Committee</a> has shown climate leadership among sporting organizations to achieve carbon neutrality and <a href="https://www.un.org/development/desa/dspd/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2019/09/Sports_for_Climate_Action_Declaration_and_Framework.pdf">use sport to unify global citizens for climate action</a>. </p>
<p>Yet competing at the Olympics and addressing climate change may have more in common than we might at first think. Both demand incredible feats of strength, endurance and ingenuity to overcome obstacles and to achieve what seems impossible.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175976/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natalie LB Knowles receives funding from SSHRC Joseph Bombardier Scholarship and Sport Participation Research Initiative. Natalie is the research coordinator for Protect Our Winters Canada, a climate advocacy non profit organization. </span></em></p>An analysis of 21 former Winter Olympic venues found that only one of them would be suitable and offer safe racing conditions for athletes if greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise.Natalie L.B. Knowles, PhD candidate, Interdisciplinary Centre on Climate Change, University of WaterlooLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1755822022-02-03T17:44:44Z2022-02-03T17:44:44ZSilence is golden? Olympic athletes’ freedom of speech muted by Games organizers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442363/original/file-20220124-23-19tipti.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5739%2C3823&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The International Olympic Committee has a demonstrated history of controlling athletes' public statements, despite claiming that athletes are free to express their opinions in press conferences, in media interviews and on social media.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/David J. Phillip) </span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 175px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/silence-is-golden-olympic-athletes--freedom-of-speech-muted-by-games-organizers" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>Beyond the Olympic’s facade of glitz, glamour and gold there’s a glaring and controversial regulation — the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) <a href="https://olympics.com/athlete365/what-we-do/voice/athlete-expression-rule-50/">Rule 50</a>. Rule 50 prohibits athletes from demonstrating during competition or on the podium. </p>
<p>Two years ago, IOC member <a href="https://olympics.com/ioc/news/free-speech-for-olympic-athletes">Dick Pound</a> stated that “athletes remain free to express their opinions in press conferences, in media interviews and on social media.” But the <a href="https://olympics.com/athlete365/who-we-are/athletes-declaration/">Athletes Declaration</a> is clear — all Olympians must “comply with applicable national laws.” </p>
<p>This includes forgoing their right to freedom of speech and expression while in China because of the regime’s <a href="https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3146188/picking-quarrels-and-provoking-trouble-how-chinas-catch-all">vague law</a> against “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.”</p>
<p>With the 2022 Beijing Olympics looming, Pound has been <a href="https://www.sportsnet.ca/olympics/article/dick-pound-defends-iocs-decision-award-olympics-china/">assuring Olympic critics</a> that “there is absolutely nothing wrong with China” as an Olympic host.</p>
<p>If Pound’s commentary leaves you with an unsettling sense of déjà vu, there’s a good reason for that. Addressing 205 national Olympic committees before the 2008 Beijing Olympics, IOC President Jacques Rogge <a href="https://olympics.com/ioc/news/-freedom-of-expression-is-a-basic-human-right">downplayed threats to freedom of speech</a> saying: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“A person’s ability to express his or her opinion is a basic human right and as such does not need to have a specific clause in the Olympic Charter because its place is implicit.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In addition to restrictions imposed by the IOC and China, many active athletes are contractually bound by their Olympic federation’s code of ethics to refrain from making “<a href="https://resources.fina.org/fina/document/2021/01/12/c9057283-1c4e-442e-807e-f88c982c7275/logo_fina_code_of_ethics_as_approved_by_the_ec_on_22.07.2017_final_0.pdf">adverse comments</a>” on executive decisions.</p>
<h2>China’s assault on athlete rights</h2>
<p>Even if the IOC gave athletes the green light to protest, such actions would be ill-advised since China’s authoritarian regime is notorious for its <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/09/china/china-travel-foreigners-arbitrary-detention-hnk-dst-intl/index.html">arbitrary detentions</a>. </p>
<p>The IOC’s silence suggests that it is aligning itself with China rather than championing Olympic athletes, while stifling growing criticism regarding its own hollow commitments to human rights.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-sanctioning-a-refugee-team-to-letting-china-host-does-the-international-olympic-committee-support-human-rights-172467">From sanctioning a refugee team to letting China host: Does the International Olympic Committee support human rights?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Dutch officials recently advised athletes <a href="https://www.reuters.com/lifestyle/sports/dutch-athletes-warned-keep-phones-laptops-out-china-media-2022-01-11/">to leave personal electronic devices at home</a> and use only team-provided cell phones in order to avoid Chinese espionage. </p>
<p><a href="https://citizenlab.ca/about/">Citizen Lab</a> at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy recently determined that an application all athletes are required to download for submitting health and customs information has a “<a href="https://citizenlab.ca/2022/01/cross-country-exposure-analysis-my2022-olympics-app/">devastating flaw where encryption protecting users’ voice audio and file transfers can be trivially sidestepped</a>.”</p>
<p>On the same day the security flaw was revealed, Beijing Organizing Committee official Yang Shu explained that athletes could indeed be <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jan/21/china-threat-punishment-beijing-winter-olympics-athletes-political-statements-free-speech-very-concerning-australia-says">punished for political statements</a> to journalists and on social media. </p>
<p>In fact, the committee will have departments <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jan/21/china-threat-punishment-beijing-winter-olympics-athletes-political-statements-free-speech-very-concerning-australia-says">dedicated to monitoring Olympians’ speech</a> for the duration of the Games.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman wearing a medical face mask holding a sign that says 'Save Tibet: Boycott Beijing 2022.'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442345/original/file-20220124-15-1rpk2fo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442345/original/file-20220124-15-1rpk2fo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442345/original/file-20220124-15-1rpk2fo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442345/original/file-20220124-15-1rpk2fo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442345/original/file-20220124-15-1rpk2fo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442345/original/file-20220124-15-1rpk2fo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442345/original/file-20220124-15-1rpk2fo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protesters and activists gathered in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin on Jan. 4 to protest against the Beijing Olympic Games and call on Germany to diplomatically boycott the Winter Olympics.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Michael Sohn)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But there’s a lot for athletes to comment on — from the obvious attempt of Chinese authorities to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/jan/21/china-threat-punishment-beijing-winter-olympics-athletes-political-statements-free-speech-very-concerning-australia-says">subvert their freedom of speech</a> to the well-documented human rights abuses unfolding against <a href="https://journals.library.brocku.ca/index.php/jess/article/view/3589/2727">Tibetans, Uyghurs, Southern Mongolians and Hong Kongers</a> and the all-too-common <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2021/country-chapters/china-and-tibet">persecution of human rights defenders</a>.</p>
<h2>The IOC Athletes’ Commission</h2>
<p>The IOC Athletes’ Commission is a group of retired athletes whose <a href="https://olympics.com/athlete365/who-we-are/ioc-athletes-commission/#:%7E:text=ArticlesRelated%20Content-,About,of%20the%20Olympic%20Movement%20decisions.">stated purpose</a> is to ensure that athletes’ viewpoints are “at the heart of Olympic movement decisions.” </p>
<p>The effectiveness of the Athletes’ Commission is limited at best. As <a href="https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-83867-773-220201008">R.A., an anonymous commission member</a> explained, many members have experienced powerlessness at the hands of international federations and are unlikely to “rock the boat,” while others “don’t want to bite the hand that feeds them.” </p>
<p>Whether Athletes’ Commission members are free to express their views is also an open question.</p>
<p>In early 2020, as the world dealt with COVID-19, some athletes challenged the IOC’s plans to host Tokyo 2020 in August. Canadian Athletes’ Commission member Hayley Wickenheiser <a href="https://www.si.com/olympics/2020/04/11/hayley-wickenheiser-ice-hockey-medical-school-doctor-coronavirus">called for postponement</a>. The IOC promptly <a href="https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1093067/hayley-wickenheiser-ppe-ioc-canada">sent her a personal message</a> saying it was “a pity” that she spoke out without asking them first. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A man wearing glasses sitting in front of a teal background" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442357/original/file-20220124-17-1iqprmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/442357/original/file-20220124-17-1iqprmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442357/original/file-20220124-17-1iqprmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442357/original/file-20220124-17-1iqprmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442357/original/file-20220124-17-1iqprmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442357/original/file-20220124-17-1iqprmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/442357/original/file-20220124-17-1iqprmm.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Dick Pound, a senior member of the International Olympic Committee, at a news conference in Munich, Germany in 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Kerstin Joensson)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/hayley-wickenheiser-had-to-speak-out-for-olympic-postponement-1.5512175">Her rebuttal</a>: “I didn’t know free speech had to go through the IOC.”</p>
<p>Clearly, the IOC wants to control athletes’ public statements. When R.A. was about to publish a critical article in an Olympic magazine, they were subjected to an unsuccessful attempt at censorship by a senior IOC member. He phoned R.A.’s private number to persuade them to tone down the article, and followed up by emailing a document that he thought would demonstrate that the critique was flawed.</p>
<h2>Solidarity: Athlete advocacy groups fight back</h2>
<p>The Olympic industry may not enjoy its privileges for much longer. Athlete advocacy groups and athlete unions — like the <a href="https://www.uniglobalunion.org/sectors/world-players/about">World Players Association</a>, <a href="https://athleten-deutschland.org/">Athleten Deutchland</a>, <a href="https://globalathlete.org/">Global Athlete</a> and others — have been <a href="https://athleten-deutschland.org/wp-content/uploads/20211206_After-Peng-Shuai-Case_Protection-of-athletes.pdf">mobilizing to protect athletes’ rights</a>, with <a href="https://globalathlete.org/our-word/global-athlete-calls-on-the-international-olympic-committee-and-the-international-paralympic-committee-to-postpone-the-games">some notable successes</a>.</p>
<p>The IOC has been the target of global criticism, inside and outside of sport, because of its recent selection of <a href="https://www.axios.com/olympics-authoritarian-china-fda2e433-0725-4579-a338-6a084fcd1ade.html">three host cities under authoritarian regimes</a> — Beijing in 2008 and 2022, and <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2014/02/11/russia-ioc-acts-sochi-abuses">Sochi in 2014</a> — with full knowledge of the human rights violations perpetuated by these governments. </p>
<p>Since <a href="https://library.olympics.com/Default/doc/SYRACUSE/68183/olympic-industry-resistance-challenging-olympic-power-and-propaganda-helen-jefferson-lenskyj?_lg=en-GB">Olympic industry propaganda</a> relies on winning hearts and minds, can it survive the damage to its brand that the protests of athletes and activists are generating?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/175582/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Can the Olympic industry survive the damage that calls for a Winter Olympics boycott are doing to its brand?Helen Jefferson Lenskyj, Professor Emerita of Sociology and Equity Studies in Education, University of TorontoMacIntosh Ross, Assistant Professor, Kinesiology, Western UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1724672022-01-25T15:46:39Z2022-01-25T15:46:39ZFrom sanctioning a refugee team to letting China host: Does the International Olympic Committee support human rights?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440770/original/file-20220113-15-1wivzs7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=10%2C0%2C6694%2C5026&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A protest against the 2022 Beijing Olympics is held in Berlin, Germany on Jan. 4, 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Michael Sohn) </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) position on refugees is contradictory and confusing. </p>
<p>The organization has <a href="https://olympics.com/ioc/refugee-olympic-team">its own Refugee Team</a> competing at the 2022 Beijing Olympics. It’s a relatively new initiative, happening first at the 2016 Rio Olympics. </p>
<p>On the surface, it seems like a noble humanitarian effort. Refugee athletes recognized by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) are permitted to compete at the Games under the Olympic flag. One would think, based on this newfound commitment to refugees, that the IOC would only hold the Olympics in nations that respect the rights of refugees. </p>
<p>With the 2022 Beijing Olympics now less than a month away, it’s difficult to square the IOC’s Refugee Team initiative with <a href="https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2021/country-chapters/china-and-tibet">China’s abysmal track record on refugees</a>. Is there any substance to the IOC’s refugee efforts or is this all for show?</p>
<h2>No simple task</h2>
<p>In <a href="https://journals.library.brocku.ca/index.php/jess/article/view/3589/2727">a recent article</a>, a team of academics and activists — including ourselves — outlined many of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CPP) human rights offences, hoping to spark a more extensive boycott action against the 2022 Beijing Olympics. </p>
<p>Under Xi Jinping, the <a href="https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/07/28/under-xi-jinping-the-number-of-chinese-asylum-seekers-has-shot-up">number of refugees fleeing China has exploded</a> — from 15,362 in 2012, the year Xi came to power, to a staggering 107,864 in 2020. </p>
<p>For Tibetans, Uyghurs and others facing <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2021-02-10/roots-cultural-genocide-xinjiang">the CCP’s policies of cultural genocide</a>, asylum in a foreign nation is often a last, desperate attempt to secure their rights and freedoms. But getting out is no simple task. </p>
<p>China persistently pursues its own refugees abroad, while at the same time ignoring international calls to follow UNHCR protocols for refugees from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108669474">North Korea and Myanmar</a>.</p>
<h2>Tracking and repatriating Uyghurs</h2>
<p>In his recent book <a href="https://globalreports.columbia.edu/books/in-the-camps/"><em>In the Camps: China’s High-Tech Penal Colony</em></a>, international relations researcher Darren Byler details the vast surveillance apparatus inflicted upon the Muslims of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. </p>
<p>The system serves, in part, to identify so-called “pre-criminals” — accused of infractions as minor as an international student using a virtual private network (VPN) to access school emails — to undergo political re-education in the state’s extensive camp system. For the most part, Uyghurs and other Muslims are prevented from becoming refugees.</p>
<p>The CCP has made <a href="https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/research/2021/03/the-nightmare-of-uyghur-families-separated-by-repression/">obtaining a passport increasingly difficult</a> for those in Xinjiang. As <em>TIME Magazine</em> journalist <a href="https://time.com/6111315/uyghur-refugees-china-biden/">Jasmine Aguilera explains</a>, “It’s next to impossible for Uyghurs in China, most of whom are under extraordinary state surveillance, to access refugee resettlement systems.”</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A road leads up to a building where police officers stand, the building looks like a large prison, the walls are cement and tall." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440767/original/file-20220113-955-iu8f4c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440767/original/file-20220113-955-iu8f4c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440767/original/file-20220113-955-iu8f4c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440767/original/file-20220113-955-iu8f4c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440767/original/file-20220113-955-iu8f4c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440767/original/file-20220113-955-iu8f4c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440767/original/file-20220113-955-iu8f4c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Police officers stand at the outer entrance of the Urumqi No. 3 Detention Center in Dabancheng, part of western China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Escaping China, however, is just the beginning. The case of <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-diplomatic-boycott-of-the-2022-beijing-olympic-games-could-bring-huseyin-celil-home-170167">Huseyin Celil</a> is instructive. After successfully <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-forgotten-canadian-languishing-in-a-chinese-jail-111736">fleeing Xinjiang</a> and obtaining UN refugee status in 2001, Celil was granted Canadian citizenship in 2005. </p>
<p>The CCP tracked Celil abroad in 2006, ultimately convincing authorities in Uzbekistan to detain and repatriate the UN-recognized refugee. Celil <a href="https://www.amnesty.ca/huseyin-celil/">has been imprisoned</a> in China ever since. </p>
<p>In fact, China has routinely convinced nations — including Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Thailand, Pakistan and Cambodia — <a href="https://www.unhcr.org/protection/basic/3b66c2aa10/convention-protocol-relating-status-refugees.html">to ignore or forgo UNHCR protocols</a>, which are a precondition to compete on the refugee team, effectively excluding would-be Olympic athletes from the Games.</p>
<h2>China, Nepal and Tibetan refugees</h2>
<p>Tibetans are also experiencing a <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/running-out-time-tibetan-president-elect-warns-cultural-genocide-2021-05-21/">cultural genocide</a> at the hands of the CCP. Like Uyghurs and other Muslims in Xinjiang, Tibetans find themselves contained by CCP forces, pinned down by the oppressive state security apparatus. </p>
<p>The CCP has severely restricted Tibetans’ freedom of movement by <a href="https://www.foreignaffairs.com/reviews/review-essay/2021-04-20/prison-called-tibet">limiting access to passports</a> and requiring “pre- and post-trip debriefings with the police as a condition of international travel.” With their options limited, many would-be refugees end up fleeing to Nepal in hopes of receiving asylum. </p>
<p>In the years since the 2008 Beijing Olympics, or “<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/24/opinion/24kristof.html">China’s genocide Olympics</a>,” which coincided with <a href="https://www.macdonaldlaurier.ca/tibetans-dont-let-genocide-olympics/">a brutal CCP crackdown on human rights in Tibet</a>, China has reinforced its border with Nepal, detaining refugees before they can reach foreign assistance. </p>
<p>For its part, Nepal accepts China’s demands, refusing to grant refugee status to newly arrived Tibetans. An annual average of 2,200 Tibetans <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2014/04/01/under-chinas-shadow/mistreatment-tibetans-nepal">fled China for Nepal prior to 2008</a>. In 2013, the year after Xi’s ascension to power, the number of refugees entering Nepal from Tibet collapsed to 171. </p>
<p>When the CCP catches Tibetans trying to cross the Nepalese border, they are “<a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2014/04/01/under-chinas-shadow/mistreatment-tibetans-nepal">imprisoned and physically abused</a>.”</p>
<h2>Cancel the 2022 Beijing Olympics</h2>
<p>The CCP’s draconian treatment of refugees seemingly puts it at odds with the IOC’s own efforts to assist refugees, making an Olympics in Beijing unjustifiable in 2022. That is, unless the IOC’s refugee initiative is merely superficial and intended more as a marketing campaign than a human rights initiative. </p>
<p>How else could Beijing be approved — for the second time in less than two decades — to host the Olympics in the first place? </p>
<p>IOC member Dick Pound’s <a href="https://www.sportsnet.ca/olympics/article/dick-pound-defends-iocs-decision-award-olympics-china/">recent comments</a> are telling. In an interview with <a href="https://share.deutschlandradio.de/dlf-audiothek-audio-teilen.html?audio_id=dira_DLF_c7da403a">Germany’s <em>Deutschlandfunk</em></a>, Pound said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“When we award the Games to a country … we don’t do it as an indication we support the political objectives of that country. It’s done on the basis of the importance of the country as a sporting nation and its ability to organize the Games at the level the world now expects for an Olympic Games.” </p>
</blockquote>
<p>The IOC’s position is clear. Human rights be damned. Refugees be damned. The Games must go on. The rest is window dressing.</p>
<p>Enough is enough. Cancel the 2022 Beijing Olympics.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/172467/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shakiba Moghadam is affiliated with Refugym charity.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>MacIntosh Ross does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The International Olympic Committee’s position is clear. Human rights be damned. Refugees be damned. The Games must go on. The rest is window dressing.MacIntosh Ross, Assistant Professor, Kinesiology, Western UniversityShakiba Oftadeh-Moghadam, PhD Researcher, School of Sport, Health and Exercise Science, University of PortsmouthLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1742232022-01-13T19:48:53Z2022-01-13T19:48:53ZGet caught up in the Olympic spirit, but keep your (political) eyes wide open<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440514/original/file-20220112-13-1325xja.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C0%2C5937%2C3979&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A woman poses for a photo with a statue of the Winter Olympic mascot Bing Dwen Dwen near the Olympic Green in Beijing on Jan. 12, 2022.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 175px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/get-caught-up-in-the-olympic-spirit--but-keep-your--political--eyes-wide-open" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics are at the crosshairs of two political crises: Accusations of human rights violations that have prompted several nations to declare <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/article/diplomatic-boycott-olympics.html">diplomatic boycotts of the Games</a>, and the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/10/china-battles-omicron-outbreak-weeks-before-winter-olympics">rapid spread of the Omicron variant</a> that raises questions about the appropriateness of athletes travelling from around the world to Beijing.</p>
<p>In a recent <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/1989172803737">interview with <em>CBC News</em>, Canadian International Olympic Committee member Dick Pound</a> revealed there is no chance the 2022 Games will be postponed. That means it’s <a href="https://olympic.ca/press/coc-and-cpc-statement-on-canadas-diplomatic-boycott-of-beijing-2022/">up to national Olympic committees</a> whether athletes will attend.</p>
<p>In response to threats of boycotts related to the human rights crises, prominent sporting and government officials took what I call either a <a href="https://doi.org/10.51644/BAP44">“sporting exceptionalist” or “crude instrumentalist”</a> position. </p>
<p>The former argues that sport and politics should not mix; the latter that even if sport is theoretically intertwined with politics, its use is ineffective and causes more harm than good.</p>
<p>But there’s a third perspective on sport and politics, it’s a viable <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13600826.2021.1973382">“soft power” resource</a>, that takes a more nuanced view of how sport might be used as a political tool of persuasion instead of coercion. </p>
<h2>Telling a ‘new’ story</h2>
<p>Governments use “mega sports” (like hosting the Olympics) to shape their images at home and abroad, to present themselves in a certain light, to tell a “new” story. </p>
<p>It is no coincidence that in the 21st century, nations often at the margins of the established “world order” — including China, Russia, Qatar, India, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, South Africa and the United Arab Emirates — <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13600826.2013.827632">regularly host mega sporting events</a> or invest in high-profile sporting clubs.</p>
<p>Viewing the <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/01/05/human-rights-abuses-will-taint-olympics-and-world-cup-its-time-end-sportswashing">2022 Beijing Olympics human rights crisis</a> from a “soft power” perspective may not result in obvious calls for a sporting boycott. But it does consider the leveraging of sport for political purposes as a very real and powerful tool at the disposal of governments. It also takes into consideration not only the tangible implications of such a decision, but the symbolic effects. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A worker works to assemble the Olympic Rings onto a tower on the outskirts of Beijing. In the photo you can see a crane, four rings and a cresent moon in the sky." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440286/original/file-20220111-19-w5gsza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440286/original/file-20220111-19-w5gsza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440286/original/file-20220111-19-w5gsza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440286/original/file-20220111-19-w5gsza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440286/original/file-20220111-19-w5gsza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440286/original/file-20220111-19-w5gsza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440286/original/file-20220111-19-w5gsza.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Beijing will host the Winter Olympics in February 2022, making it the world’s first dual Olympic city having hosted both the Summer and Winter games.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Contemplating the withdrawal of Olympic participation from a “crude instrumentalists” perspective would demand hard evidence that the return of democracy to Hong Kong would be stimulated by a boycott. “Sporting exceptionalists,” however, would refuse to even consider such actions and reiterate the need to keep sport politics-free.</p>
<h2>An impenetrable Olympic bubble</h2>
<p>In his interview with <em>CBC News</em>, Pound pointed to the <a href="https://olympics.com/ioc/news/version-2-of-the-beijing-2022-playbooks-published">extreme measures Chinese organizers</a>, with support from state officials, would take to ensure <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220104-beijing-seals-off-its-olympic-bubble">the Olympic “bubble” remains impenetrable</a>. And because that’s been done, the health and safety of athletes is <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/canada-olympic-team-bound-beijing-despite-omicron-1.6301657">apparently of limited concern</a>. But politically this raises two questions that ought to be addressed.</p>
<p>First, should Chinese officials be lauded for employing strong measures to shield the Games from the coronavirus when critics argue this same force is at the heart of <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/7194506/britain-china-uighur-hong-kong-criticism/">the Hong Kong and Uyghur human rights controversies</a>? And second, what message is sent to the rest of the world when <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2020/11/27/nurses-athletes-sports-coronavirus-tests/">athletes can freely</a> travel, access increasingly sparse testing resources and are not subjected to “employment” restrictions as the Omicron variant rages across the globe? </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/beijing-olympics-canada-the-u-k-and-others-join-bidens-diplomatic-boycott-but-its-not-enough-173399">Beijing Olympics: Canada, the U.K. and others join Biden’s diplomatic boycott, but it’s not enough</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In their rejection of boycott considerations, Olympic defenders typically refer to the unnecessary cost of an athlete giving up their once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to compete. But what about the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-winter-olympics-sports-health-pandemics-3d68155f9a9d08658282d242e5df5991">unfortunate Olympian left at home</a> due to a poorly timed positive COVID-19 test result? Could athlete “rights” be better protected all around by postponing the Games until the pandemic (hopefully) subsides?</p>
<p>My intention here is not to stake out a position on whether nations ought to send their athletes to the Beijing Winter Olympics or to withdraw participation for political reasons. In fact, as a sport fan, I look forward to the Olympics and cheering on my home nation’s athletes. </p>
<p>But I want to highlight the inevitable and complex political climate within which the Games happen and how sporting and government officials must face this head on. </p>
<p>The Olympics, and all “mega sports,” are inevitably embedded in the political contexts of their times. To dismiss or bypass the political issues that arise within or are connected to them seems naïve at best, purposefully disingenuous at worst.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A resident wearing a mask takes photos near the Big Air Shougang, a venue for freestyle and snowboard big air events at the Beijing Winter Olympic Games." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440282/original/file-20220111-23-dt7ta9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/440282/original/file-20220111-23-dt7ta9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440282/original/file-20220111-23-dt7ta9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440282/original/file-20220111-23-dt7ta9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440282/original/file-20220111-23-dt7ta9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440282/original/file-20220111-23-dt7ta9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/440282/original/file-20220111-23-dt7ta9.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The Chinese capital is on high alert ahead of the Winter Olympics as China locks down a third city for a COVID-19 outbreak.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Sport is such a <a href="https://balsilliepapers.ca/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Balsillie-Paper-Elcombe-DOI.pdf">powerful force</a> <em>because</em> it is riddled with tensions and complexities. Sport is at once free and restricted; spontaneous and highly organized; enlightening and crass; constant and fragile; playful and political. This makes sport, particularly in its “mega forms” like the Olympics, so compelling and important.</p>
<p>It’s OK to love sport, to get caught up in the Olympic spirit — however we should do so with our (political) eyes wide open.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/174223/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Elcombe does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Olympics, and all “mega sports,” are inevitably embedded in the political contexts of their times. To dismiss or bypass the political issues that arise seems naïve at best.Tim Elcombe, Associate professor, Kinesiology & Physical Education; Fellow, Balsillie School of International Affairs, Wilfrid Laurier UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1473522021-11-09T01:10:22Z2021-11-09T01:10:22ZAs the Beijing Winter Olympics countdown begins, calls to boycott the ‘Genocide Games’ grow<p>Beijing is about to become the first city to host both a winter and summer Olympics. However, this comes amid growing calls to boycott Beijing 2022, with critics labelling them the “<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/genocide-games-200-human-rights-groups-urge-boycott-beijing-2022-winter-olympics-1627500">Genocide Games</a>”. </p>
<p>With less than 100 days to go, athletes, politicians and human rights activists are among those who want to see the games cancelled or boycotted for human rights reasons. The playbooks - outlining how the games will run - have <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/sport/australian-athletes-required-to-be-vaccinated-as-strict-playbook-unveiled-for-beijing-20211026-p5937i.html">just been released</a>, but will the games go ahead as planned?</p>
<h2>Boycott calls</h2>
<p>The Tokyo games and the concerns around COVID distracted people from the 2022 Winter Olympics for the better part of 2021. </p>
<p>But recently discontent with the Beijing games going ahead has reemerged in a major way. NBA basketballer and outspoken human rights advocate <a href="https://www.scmp.com/sport/china/article/3154399/nba-star-enes-kanter-calls-boycott-beijing-2022-winter-olympics-latest?module=perpetual_scroll&pgtype=article&campaign=3154399">Enes Kanter</a> is one of the latest high-profile voices to call for a boycott. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1454479571412193281"}"></div></p>
<p>A group of <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-senators-propose-adding-boycott-chinas-winter-olympics-defense-bill-2021-10-28/">US senators</a> is also calling for a diplomatic boycott, which would entail world leaders refusing to attend the games.</p>
<p>This comes on top of <a href="https://ipac.global/beijing-2022-winter-olympics/">calls</a> from the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China – including more than 100 MPs from 19 countries – for Beijing to be stripped of the games. The United Kingdom foreign secretary, Dominic Raab, <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/beijing-winter-olympics-dominic-raab-unlikely-to-attend-2022-games-as-calls-grow-for-boycott-over-chinas-alleged-uighur-abuses-12366931">has said</a> it is “unlikely” he will attend.</p>
<h2>‘Using the Games’</h2>
<p>Concerns about Beijing hosting the games coalesce around severe human rights abuses. These are longstanding, and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1993/09/24/sports/olympics-2000-go-to-sydney-in-surprise-setback-for-china.html">played into</a> China losing the hosting rights to Sydney in 2000 (although they did host the summer games in 2008). </p>
<p>As a coalition of <a href="https://nobeijing2022.org/olympia/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Beijing-2022-Joint-Broadcasters-letter-September-2021.pdf">200 global campaign groups</a> wrote in September: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>At least two million Muslims - including Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and Uzbeks - are locked in “re-education camps” […] The situation in occupied Tibet has dramatically deteriorated and in 2021 […] In Hong Kong […] freedom and democracy are under attack, and youth activists are being rounded up and imprisoned en masse. In mainland China, the Chinese authorities routinely disappear government critics […] At the same time, Beijing has intensified its decades-long tactics of geopolitical bullying and intimidation of democratic Taiwan. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Human Rights Watch <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/08/05/higher-faster-harsher-olympics-head-beijing#">says</a> the Chinese government is using the games to “hide their abuses and to imply that the world approves”.</p>
<h2>Historical precedents</h2>
<p>There is a precedence for not going ahead with an Olympic Games, despite the huge level of organisation and planning involved. The most recent example was the delay to the Tokyo games over the coronavirus pandemic.</p>
<p>The summer games have been cancelled on three occasions due to war – 1916 (Berlin), 1940 (Tokyo), and 1944 (London), while the winter games were cancelled twice – 1940 (Sapporo) and 1944 (Cortina D'Ampezzo).</p>
<p>Under different circumstances, the citizens of Colorado voted to withhold funding for the 1976 Denver Winter games and the International Olympic Committee (IOC) subsequently awarded them to Innsbruck. This followed a public backlash against the ecological and economic costs of running the games. </p>
<h2>Take the games away?</h2>
<p>The IOC could conceivably strip the games from Beijing and give it to another city – although realistically (and logistically) it is probably too late to do this. Any relocated games would logically have to go to a recent host city such as PyeongChang (2018) or Vancouver (2010), since they have the infrastructure and experience. There could also be an opportunity to postpone the games until 2023.</p>
<p>But the IOC will do its utmost not to cancel, move or have a widespread boycott of the 2022 games. It needs to protect its bottom line and prestige. Officially, the IOC is also at pains to keep politics out of the games. As <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/michellebruton/2020/10/26/ioc-president-thomas-bach-olympics-are-not-about-politics-athletes-should-be-politically-neutral-at-games/?sh=207a02e679d8">president Thomas Bach says</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The Olympic Games are not about politics. The International Olympic Committee, as a civil, non-governmental organisation is strictly politically neutral at all times.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If it took the games away, China would then likely withdraw from the Olympics – as it did from 1956 to 1984. This would have a huge impact on the Olympic movement, as China has finished in the top four in the past seven summer games and sitting sixth on the all-time medal tally for the summer and winter games. </p>
<h2>A political boycott?</h2>
<p>But beyond the IOC, there can still be significant boycotts of the Beijing games. </p>
<p>The United States <a href="https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-movement-to-boycott-the-berlin-olympics-of-1936">hotly debated</a> a boycott in the lead up to the 1936 Berlin Olympics in Nazi Germany, while a “counter-Olympics” was planned for Barcelona (it was overtaken by the Spanish Civil War). </p>
<p>Six Olympic boycotts in 1956 (Melbourne), 1964 (Tokyo), 1976 (Montreal), 1980 (Moscow), 1984 (Los Angeles) and 1988 (Seoul) saw the games proceed with reduced participation. The reasons for these boycotts included war, invasions and apartheid.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-protest-chinas-human-rights-violations-without-boycotting-the-2022-olympics-149344">How to protest China's human rights violations without boycotting the 2022 Olympics</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>There have not been any boycotts of previous Winter Olympics. But a boycott could prove very powerful. The winter games are not as “global” as the summer event. Most of the athletes and medal winners come from a small list of affluent western nations, such as the United States, Germany, Norway and Canada. So, if they were to collectively support a boycott, it could seriously undermine the competition and force IOC action. </p>
<p>However, most national Olympic committees, especially those in western democracies, are independent bodies and could ignore a government-led boycott. This is what happened with the Moscow games (1980) when Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser supported the US-led boycott but the Australian Olympic Committee allowed its athletes to compete.</p>
<h2>What about business boycotts?</h2>
<p>Despite heavy lobbying by human rights groups, Olympic sponsors such as Coca Cola, Samsung and Toyota are trying to ignore the politics. </p>
<p>Major sponsors have not made any statements so far about changing their hefty investments (estimated to be about a <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-10-11/big-brands-face-a-110-billion-dilemma-with-the-beijing-olympics">US$110 billion</a>) linked to the Beijing games. Meanwhile, a <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-broadcast-boycott-is-the-best-chance-to-mount-serious-resistance-against-the-bejing-olympic-games-167757">broadcast boycott</a>, which would also be very powerful, also seems unlikely. </p>
<h2>Athlete protests</h2>
<p>As the games get underway, athlete activism could surface. Former Canadian Olympian and scholar Bruce Kidd <a href="https://theconversation.com/boycotting-the-next-olympics-in-beijing-will-hurt-athletes-heres-a-better-idea-165451">has made a plea</a> for athletes not to boycott the games and instead be allowed to protest without contravening the IOC Charter. </p>
<p>It is fair to assume neither China nor the IOC will encourage overt athlete protests over China’s human rights record. </p>
<p>However, the rules preventing political protests from Olympic athletes were <a href="https://olympics.com/ioc/news/ioc-extends-opportunities-for-athlete-expression-during-the-olympic-games-tokyo-2020">relaxed slightly</a> ahead of the Tokyo games. This means athletes can “express their views” as long as they do not do so during competition or official ceremonies and do not do so against particular countries.</p>
<p>As we head towards the opening ceremony on February 4, all indications are these games will take place. But Beijing 2022 is on track to be one of the most politically-charged games ever.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/147352/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Baka does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Beijing 2022 is on track to be the most politically-charged games ever.Richard Baka, Adjunct Fellow, Olympic Scholar and Co-Director of the Olympic and Paralympic Research Centre, Institute for Health and Sport, Victoria UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1701672021-10-31T11:56:39Z2021-10-31T11:56:39ZA diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Beijing Olympic Games could bring Huseyin Celil home<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428047/original/file-20211022-18-j95amh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=14%2C0%2C4977%2C3323&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Children wave national flags and Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic Games flags during a welcome ceremony for the Frame of Olympic Winter Games Beijing 2022 in October, 2021.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Andy Wong) </span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 175px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/a-diplomatic-boycott-of-the-2022-beijing-olympic-games-could-bring-huseyin-celil-home" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>As the 2022 Beijing Olympics approach, the plight of Canada’s Huseyin Celil needs to be a clear priority for our nation and government. </p>
<p>In 2000, Celil escaped from his unlawful imprisonment in the People’s Republic of China where he was being held as punishment for his <a href="https://www.amnesty.ca/huseyin-celil/">activism on Uyghur political and religious rights</a>. He then followed international protocols, obtaining <a href="https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/huseyin-celil-10042021174813.html">United Nations refugee status in 2001, then Canadian citizenship shortly after</a>.</p>
<p>In 2006, while visiting family in Uzbekistan, Celil was captured and repatriated to China. There, he was <a href="https://www.amnesty.ca/huseyin-celil/">denied access to proper legal representation and sentenced to life in prison</a> on trumped up terrorism charges, despite a <a href="https://www.hrichina.org/sites/default/files/PDFs/CRF.4.2006/CRF-2006-4_Profile.pdf">glaring lack of evidence</a>. </p>
<p>Although Celil’s sentence has been reduced, he has still languished in a Chinese prison for the last fifteen years. Celil’s wife, Kamila, and four children have been without a husband and father <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4874245/canadian-detained-china-huseyin-celil/">for over a decade</a>. It’s time to pull out all the stops and make every conceivable effort to bring Celil home. </p>
<p>In a <a href="https://globalnews.ca/news/4874245/canadian-detained-china-huseyin-celil/">recent interview with <em>Global News</em></a>, Kamila was optimistic about her husband’s future. “I was really happy when the two Michaels landed in Canada … I’m very positive for Huseyin’s case now. I’m very positive. I’m looking forward to bringing him home.”</p>
<p>The recent release of the <a href="https://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/huseyin-celil-10042021174813.html">two Michaels</a> — Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor — was secured by the United States government through what appeared to be a quid pro quo agreement to release Huwawei executive Meng Wanzhou, who stood accused of financial fraud. Canada played a central role in Meng’s detention, resulting in the retaliatory, arbitrary arrest and imprisonment of the Michaels in China. </p>
<p>The fact that the release of Meng immediately resulted in freedom for the Michaels says volumes about China’s view of diplomacy. It’s a transactional process. We give them something, they give us something. </p>
<p>For the Canadian government, diplomatic participation in the 2022 Beijing Olympics is something worth putting on the table in exchange for Celil’s release. A new quid pro quo. Release Celil and Canada will send its diplomats to the Olympics.</p>
<h2>The Olympics and refugees</h2>
<p>It’s easy to get carried away by the euphoria of the Olympics. A festival with deep nationalistic meanings for governments, it takes the attention of the media and with it millions of people. We’re told to support athletes and, through their medals and records, celebrate Canadian excellence. </p>
<p>But it’s hard to revel in the Olympic spectacle of peaceful internationalism and global friendship from a jail cell. </p>
<p>Canada has already toed the Olympic line for the <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2008/04/09/harper_wont_back_call_for_boycott_of_olympics.html">2008 Beijing Olympics</a>, evidently buying into claims that the event would improve the human rights landscape in China.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="People in red coats stand cheering" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428046/original/file-20211022-9457-eezv43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428046/original/file-20211022-9457-eezv43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428046/original/file-20211022-9457-eezv43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428046/original/file-20211022-9457-eezv43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428046/original/file-20211022-9457-eezv43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428046/original/file-20211022-9457-eezv43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428046/original/file-20211022-9457-eezv43.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Members of the Bejing Olympic city bid team celebrate their winning bid for the 2008 Olympics, after hearing the results in Moscow in July 2001.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">CP PHOTO/Fred Chartrand</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Since 2008, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has <a href="https://olympics.com/ioc/refugee-olympic-team-rio-2016">embraced refugees</a> as part of the Olympic family. Beginning in 2016, refugees with UN status could apply to compete on a <a href="https://olympics.com/ioc/refugee-olympic-team-rio-2016">separate Olympic team</a>. If Celil were an athlete, he’d meet the criteria. Unfortunately, the IOC’s decision to recognize UN status refugee athletes came shortly after they’d already granted Beijing the hosting rights for 2022, sending the Games to a nation where <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/rsq/hdy003">refugee status means virtually nothing</a>.</p>
<p>China routinely uses its economic and martial power to coerce other nations into assisting in the repatriation of the country’s refugees. As legal scholar Lili Song shows <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/rsq/hdy003">thorough analysis of China and refugees</a>, the Chinese Communist Party has successfully pressured numerous other nations, including Thailand, Nepal, Cambodia, Kazakhstan, Malaysia and Albania, into assisting with the capture and repatriation of Chinese nationals. </p>
<p>China also refuses to allow the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/ijrl/eex031">United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to access and support</a> the thousands of ethnic Kokangs and Kachins fleeing into China from Myanmar, and the hundreds of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/rsq/hdy003">North Koreans pouring over China’s northeastern border</a>.</p>
<h2>A diplomatic boycott could bring Celil home</h2>
<p>The IOC has a refugee team. The IOC also has a longstanding relationship with the UN. Yet, China is openly flouting <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/07/22/china-restarts-forced-returns-refugees-north-korea">UN protocols when it comes to refugees</a>. This provides a perfect opportunity for the Canadian government to point to the failures of the IOC, UN and China and support Celil’s basic human rights and freedoms. Put pressure on all three. </p>
<p>How? The threat of a firm, unwavering diplomatic boycott of the Games. Lawyer Chris McLeod, who represents Celil agrees — he told me:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“There may never be another opportunity quite like this. The Canadian government can show its support for Huseyin through a diplomatic boycott of these Games. Every time a Canadian athlete competes, Celil’s struggle will be raised in the national and international media. That’s no small amount of pressure and China is very alert to its international reputation. They don’t want the Games to be a platform to ridicule their human rights record.”</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A woman wearing a hijab is pictured from the shoulders up, she is looking off into the distance" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428045/original/file-20211022-9823-ese797.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/428045/original/file-20211022-9823-ese797.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428045/original/file-20211022-9823-ese797.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428045/original/file-20211022-9823-ese797.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428045/original/file-20211022-9823-ese797.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428045/original/file-20211022-9823-ese797.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/428045/original/file-20211022-9823-ese797.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=607&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Kamila Talendibaeva, wife of Huseyin Celil, is hoping her husband will be able to come home after the release of the two Michaels.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">CP PHOTO/Fred Chartrand</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As a scholar, I stand with McLeod and Celil’s family. I completely and whole-heartedly support a diplomatic boycott as part of a broader effort to secure Celil’s freedom, but a few voices won’t be enough. Politicians need to speak up.</p>
<p>Olympians and Paralympians can uplift the voices of Celil’s family and supporters by calling for his release over the next four months <a href="https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/sports/nbcsports/winter-olympics-2022-guide-with-beijing-dates-fun-facts-and-more/2658706/">before the 2022 Olympics begin</a>. Academics, journalists and activists should join in solidarity. </p>
<p>We need to be so loud that the Canadian government can’t help but listen. The Trudeau government, IOC and UN talk a big game when it comes to human rights, undeniably linking the Olympic Games with global peace efforts. Let’s hold them accountable and demand action.</p>
<p>If there is no freedom for Huseyin Celil, Canadian diplomats must stay home. Full stop.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170167/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>MacIntosh Ross does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Olympians and Paralympians can uplift the voices of Celil’s family and supporters by calling for his release over the next four months. Academics, journalists and activists should join in solidarity.MacIntosh Ross, Assistant Professor, Kinesiology, Western UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1642672021-07-19T13:47:49Z2021-07-19T13:47:49ZTokyo Olympics without crowds: will the home nation’s medal chances suffer?<p>The Tokyo 2021 Olympics will be the first Games to take place with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2021/jul/08/tokyo-to-be-put-under-state-of-emergency-for-duration-of-2020-olympic-games">no spectators</a>. The sight of sparsely populated stadiums and arenas has, of course, become common during the pandemic – and sports economists have studied the impact this has had on athletic performance. </p>
<p>But the Olympics are different. For so many athletes, reaching the four-yearly Games is the crowning achievement of their careers. So there was bitter disappointment when at first <a href="https://theconversation.com/should-the-tokyo-olympics-go-ahead-without-a-level-playing-field-for-covid-19-vaccines-157103">international</a> and then <a href="https://theconversation.com/tokyo-2020-with-no-spectators-local-sponsors-lose-out-163450#:%7E:text=After%20much%20deliberation%20over%20whether,no%20domestic%20or%20foreign%20spectators.&text=They%20are%20part%20of%20the,International%20Olympic%20Committee%20(IOC).">domestic</a> visitors <a href="https://theconversation.com/holding-the-tokyo-olympics-without-spectators-during-covid-19-emergency-puts-the-iocs-supreme-authority-on-full-display-163702">were banned</a> from events.</p>
<p>Now all athletes in Tokyo will be performing to venues <a href="https://reut.rs/3r24QPt">largely emptied</a> of all fans. But this will be more keenly felt by Japan’s Olympic team, who would have dreamed of performing in front of their own fans. And how will the empty arenas affect their ability to capitalise on home advantage?</p>
<p>A <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2021.109868">supportive home audience</a> is one of the four factors to which <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-really-causes-home-field-advantage-and-why-its-on-the-decline-126086">home advantage</a> in professional sports is routinely pegged. Others include athletes not having <a href="https://doi.org/10.1123/jsep.13.1.42">to travel</a>, being <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/026404102321011724">familiar</a> with home conditions and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-985X.2009.00604.x">favourable referee bias</a>.</p>
<p>The hosts of the last three summer Olympics - <a href="https://theconversation.com/rios-olympic-legacy-six-months-on-how-has-the-city-fared-72993">Rio 2016</a>, London 2012 and Beijing 2008 - did unusually well too, gaining a higher proportion of Olympic success, as measured in medals and finalists, in both men’s and women’s events compared with the previous Games. In terms of gold medals only, Brazil went from three to seven between 2012 and 2016, Great Britain went from 19 to 29 between 2008 and 2012, and China went from 32 to 48 between 2004 and 2008.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411728/original/file-20210717-15-br2qu1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411728/original/file-20210717-15-br2qu1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411728/original/file-20210717-15-br2qu1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411728/original/file-20210717-15-br2qu1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=923&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411728/original/file-20210717-15-br2qu1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411728/original/file-20210717-15-br2qu1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411728/original/file-20210717-15-br2qu1.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1160&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Percentage of Olympic points in men’s and women’s events, won by host nations of the last three summer Olympic Games, 1992-2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Uses data from the International Olympic Committee and Olympics.com. Olympic Points are summed over all men’s or women’s events in a Games according to the following: Gold=5, Silver=3, Bronze=2, Finalist=1.</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We <a href="https://ssrn.com/abstract=3888639">have quantified</a> the general home advantage effects, throughout the modern Olympic period, from 1896 to 2016. Unlike most research to date, we have looked at both summer and winter Olympiads, and at sports held under very different conditions – with or without judges, inside or outside a venue, with many or few spectators. </p>
<h2>Modern Olympic history</h2>
<p>We looked at the percentage of all available gold medals won by the host nation for each summer and winter Games in the modern era, from <a href="https://olympics.com/en/olympic-games/athens-1896">Athens 1896</a> to <a href="https://olympics.com/en/olympic-games/rio-2016">Rio 2016</a>, for men’s and for women’s events.</p>
<p>In the early years the host had a substantial advantage. At the 1932 summer Olympics in Los Angeles, the US team won 28% of the gold medals available in the men’s events and 70% in the women’s events. This advantage then declined over time as the diversity of countries and athletes participating has <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/su12010141">increased</a>, raising competition. At Rio 2016, 207 countries were represented, compared with just 37 countries in 1932.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411419/original/file-20210715-17-udeztm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411419/original/file-20210715-17-udeztm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411419/original/file-20210715-17-udeztm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411419/original/file-20210715-17-udeztm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411419/original/file-20210715-17-udeztm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411419/original/file-20210715-17-udeztm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411419/original/file-20210715-17-udeztm.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Percentage of all gold medals in men’s events won by the host nation at the summer and winter Olympic Games, 1896-2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Uses data from the International Olympic Committee and Olympics.com. </span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411422/original/file-20210715-17-1azh7fq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/411422/original/file-20210715-17-1azh7fq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411422/original/file-20210715-17-1azh7fq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411422/original/file-20210715-17-1azh7fq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411422/original/file-20210715-17-1azh7fq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411422/original/file-20210715-17-1azh7fq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/411422/original/file-20210715-17-1azh7fq.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Percentage of all gold medals in women’s events won by the host nation at the summer and winter Olympic Games, 1900-2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Uses data from the International Olympic Committee and Olympics.com. </span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Several <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177%2F1527002521992833">studies</a> have estimated the effect of hosting the Olympics on the success of home teams and individual athletes. Typically, they have found that it depends on <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/16184742.2016.1248463">the sport</a> and the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1515/jbnst-2012-0307">athlete’s gender</a>. </p>
<p>By comparing how countries performed when hosting and when not, we estimate that hosts of the summer Olympics could expect on average a two percentage-point increase in their share of success across disciplines, for both men’s and women’s events. Assuming finalists and bronze medals were unaffected, this corresponds to Japan approximately turning every seventh silver medal into gold because they are competing at home.</p>
<p>We also found that the home advantage effect has been 50% greater at the winter than the summer Olympics since 1988 in men’s events. We found no advantage for female athletes from hosting at the winter Games. </p>
<p>Great Britain may have achieved fewer golds in 2016 compared with their home games in 2012, but the overall medal count went up, from 67 to 69. In general, we found that spillover effects of hosting the summer Games on the previous and next Olympiads are normal. </p>
<p>Compared with the year of actually hosting the summer Games, the boost in success in men’s events was one-third as large as in the previous Games, and half as large as in the next Games. But these spillover effects from hosting do not tend to appear at the winter Games.</p>
<h2>Tokyo without crowds</h2>
<p>Sports economists and psychologists have studied how the absence of fans has affected performance during the pandemic. Much <a href="https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/qjp27">attention</a> has focused on <a href="https://theconversation.com/without-crowds-football-teams-still-have-a-home-advantage-new-study-158018">football</a>, where <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2020.102344">studies</a> have found reduced home advantage in matches played behind closed doors. </p>
<p>This is caused in part by how <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econlet.2020.109664">referees could make decisions</a> without the pressure of a home audience. Similar effects have been noted <a href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2105.01446">in rugby</a>.</p>
<p>Not all Olympic sports, however, attract a raucous crowd that inspires performances or pressures the referees. Previous <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/16184742.2016.1248463">research</a> found a significant host advantage in judged sports (such as gymnastics), but not in track and field athletics or swimming, where audiences are typically huge, but officials seldom influence outcomes. And even in stadium and arena events, Olympic crowds are typically more international and less partisan than at a Premier League football match.</p>
<p>Japan’s athletes will also still have favourable home knowledge and experience of the conditions on site (the climate, routines, and venues). These might, however, somewhat be reduced due to the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-olympics-2020-test-aquatics-idUSKBN2BS26V">cancellation</a> of Olympic test events and the COVID measures on-site, which remain extraordinary compared to other years.</p>
<p>International athletes, meanwhile, will have had to travel to Tokyo. And all participants who do not live in Japan will have had to quarantine at their accommodation upon arrival for at least <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Sports/covid-19-rules-tokyo-olympics-spectators-banned-vaccination/story?id=78225985">three days</a>. </p>
<p>Therefore, Japan is still likely to do well. A strong showing by the host nation matters. While the economic benefits of hosting are <a href="https://www.elgaronline.com/view/9781840649475.00017.xml">minimal</a> despite their <a href="https://time.com/4421865/olympics-cost-history/">ever increasing</a> costs, research has shown there are other positive benefits, from <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smr.2017.05.001">increased sports participation</a> among citizens to a sense of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.smr.2012.07.001">national pride, happiness</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joep.2009.11.005">wellbeing</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164267/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carl Singleton receives funding from the Economics and Social Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Johan Rewilak receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dominik Schreyer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Throughout the modern Olympic period, the host nation has had a home advantage. But crowds are not the only factorCarl Singleton, Associate Professor in Economics, University of ReadingDominik Schreyer, Assistant Professor of Sports Economics, WHU – Otto Beisheim School of ManagementJohan Rewilak, Lecturer in Economics, Finance and Entrepreneurship, Aston UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1037132018-11-15T01:37:06Z2018-11-15T01:37:06ZWhy Calgary is no longer an Olympic city<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245636/original/file-20181114-194494-1fph23i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Calgarians have voted against a proposal to bid for the 2026 Winter Olympics. Here a young girl learns to skate at the Calgary Olympic Plaza, built for the 1988 Games.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Calgary has decided it is no longer an Olympic city by becoming the <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/6-cities-that-rejected-the-olympics/a-46289852">latest city</a> to reject the idea of hosting the Olympic Games. When results of a special plebiscite on the city’s proposal to host the 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Games were released, <a href="https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/no-surprise-calgary-voted-no-to-2026-games-international-olympic-committee">56 per cent had voted for the No side</a>.</p>
<p>The people have spoken. However, as professors specializing in sport management and marketing, we believe the business case for hosting the 2026 Games was exceptional and rejecting the plan will have lasting repercussions on Calgary and Canada. </p>
<p>The project would have injected $4 billion of external funding over the next eight years into an economy that continues to struggle. The plan would have reduced the municipal government financial burden by 75 per cent in upgrade of existing facilities, from McMahon Stadium to the <a href="https://oval.ucalgary.ca/">Olympic Oval</a>, while also providing funding for the city’s long overdue <a href="https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/field-house-boosters-worry-opportunity-would-be-squandered-by-not-bidding-for-olympics">multi-sport field house</a>. </p>
<h2>Who pays now?</h2>
<p>If we only look at the proposed Games cost-sharing model from the provincial and federal governments, the Calgary taxpayers are now likely on the hook for a minimum of $500 million to support existing sports facilities. </p>
<p>The interesting question, then, is why did Calgary residents decisively choose to reject going forward with a bid to host the 2026 Olympic and Paralympic Games? </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245644/original/file-20181114-194500-1r7dbup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245644/original/file-20181114-194500-1r7dbup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245644/original/file-20181114-194500-1r7dbup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245644/original/file-20181114-194500-1r7dbup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=407&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245644/original/file-20181114-194500-1r7dbup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245644/original/file-20181114-194500-1r7dbup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245644/original/file-20181114-194500-1r7dbup.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=512&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Members of the Yes campaign react to the results of a plebiscite on whether the city should proceed with a bid for the 2026 Winter Olympics.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We have been studying the Calgary bid process for more than a year, including interviewing many involved in the process. This research has given us a unique insight. </p>
<p>In hindsight and through a historical lens, the outcome may now be seen as inevitable. Our conclusion is that the fault lies squarely at the group who initiated and allocated millions of taxpayers dollars to fund the work over two years — Calgary city council. </p>
<h2>Roots of a failure</h2>
<p>The roots of this failure goes back to before 2014, when community leaders informally discussed the merits of bidding to host the 2026 Games. In 2016, council decided that it wanted to control the process, and so they established the <a href="http://www.calgary.ca/CSPS/Recreation/Pages/Calgary-2026-Olympic-bid/Council-Committee-Bid-Corporation.aspx#calgary2026">Calgary Bid Exploration Committee (CBEC).</a></p>
<p>CBEC was provided a $4.7 million operating budget and council established a volunteer board of directors comprised of 17 senior civic leaders from a diverse range of backgrounds. A critical requirement of the CBEC mandate was that the board and staff be objective throughout the process. </p>
<p>This question of objectivity sounds simple, but perhaps in retrospect it was a fatal weakness that paralyzed CBEC from delivering on one of its key mandate — public engagement. This public engagement was limited by a fear that CBEC would be perceived as advocating for a specific position. As a result, engagement was limited to a survey and online forum. </p>
<h2>‘Tell me more’</h2>
<p>What’s more, consulting the general public during the CBEC stage on a vague question such as “Would you support Calgary bidding for the 2026 Games?” was also problematic. This question would lead to the inevitable response — “Maybe, tell me more.”</p>
<p>The challenge was that no one had any additional information at such an early stage to share. To make matters worse, the city designed the CBEC process in a vacuum and independent of a greater vision for the city. </p>
<p>Supporters of the plan will tell you that Calgary has visions — one is called <a href="https://www.calgaryeconomicdevelopment.com/the-new-economy">Calgary in the New Economy</a> and another is <a href="http://www.calgary.ca/PDA/pd/Pages/Office-of-Sustainability/imagineCALGARY.aspx">imagineCalgary</a>. These visions and other city plans are endless — and most are very good.</p>
<p>However, these plans and visions are not owned by the citizens of Calgary. Any management professor or business leader will tell you that unless a vision is owned by its constituents, it is simply a nice report. </p>
<h2>Fundamental flaw</h2>
<p>This was another fundamental flaw of the Calgary 2026 process. Asking people to vote on the Olympic bid in absence of an articulated, holistic and measurable vision of their city was not only unfair, it was impossible.</p>
<p>In May 2017, CBEC submitted <a href="http://www.calgary.ca/CSPS/Recreation/Pages/Calgary-2026-Olympic-bid/Olympics-Reports.aspx">a 5,400-page report</a> to council, at which point city administration took over the project. The Olympic and Paralympic file then disappeared into the inner workings of the city, only to reappear with the formation of a 2026 bid committee eight months later. It was another four months before the bid committee appointed its CEO.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245643/original/file-20181114-194506-17zg4s8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/245643/original/file-20181114-194506-17zg4s8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245643/original/file-20181114-194506-17zg4s8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245643/original/file-20181114-194506-17zg4s8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245643/original/file-20181114-194506-17zg4s8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245643/original/file-20181114-194506-17zg4s8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/245643/original/file-20181114-194506-17zg4s8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=488&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Olympian Michael Edwards, who gained worldwide popularity during the 1988 Calgary Games when he was known as Eddie the Eagle, speaks during a rally in support of the 2026 Winter Olympics.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh</span></span>
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<p>During the 12 months between the submission of the CBEC report and the formation of the bid committee, no widespread or meaningful public engagement took place. </p>
<p>During our research, many spoke of a process that the general public perceived was rigged by the political elites, not owned by the people. </p>
<p>Modern marketing is about collaborating with customers from initial concept right through to delivery and beyond. It’s about ensuring that your customers own the product as much, or even more than the company does. The absence of Calgarians from the design process meant it wasn’t their bid, it was someone else’s. Their lack of ownership turned the debate to one thing — cost. </p>
<p>And during this entire time, the bill was adding up to somewhere in the $12 million range. </p>
<p>Much of this was caused by a city council — with its winner-take-all mentality — that appeared paralyzed. Too many council members seemed to focus their energy on the next short-term political win and soundbite and not on a long-term vision for the city. The final two weeks of the plebiscite made this very apparent. </p>
<p>The result of the entire process was a decay of public trust as some councillors relished amplifying the narrative that the bid was being driven by the “elites” of the city. This may have won short-term political points, but at a cost of declining long-term trust and increased decay in our civic institutions. </p>
<p>It is clear to us that things need to change. </p>
<p>Calgary is a city of passionate and dedicated community leaders. We all need to engage and help frame and define the vision for our city. A vision we all own.</p>
<p>If we do this, as a community, we will move past the political rhetoric and be able to grade our elected leaders not on short-term political wins, but rather on how they work together with us to build a city for tomorrow and the next generation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/103713/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Calgary is the latest city to reject bidding for the Olympics. A lack of a vision for the city and a council concerned with short-term political gains explain why an Olympic plebiscite was defeated.Norm O'Reilly, Assistant Dean, Professor & Director of the International Institute for Sport Business & Leadership, University of GuelphDavid J Finch, Professor and Associate Director, Institute for Innovation & Entrepreneurship, Mount Royal UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/931062018-03-12T10:58:09Z2018-03-12T10:58:09ZThree radical steps to derail doping in elite sport<p>Elite British cycling outfit Team Sky “crossed an ethical line” by giving medicines to squad members which could be used to enhance performance, according to the <a href="https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201719/cmselect/cmcumeds/366/366.pdf">new UK parliamentary committee report</a> into doping in British cycling and athletics. </p>
<p>Though the report makes clear that the drug use was within <a href="https://www.usada.org/about/world-anti-doping-code/">global anti-doping rules</a>, it devotes much attention to eight-times cycling medallist Bradley Wiggins and several occasions on which he took medicines before major races – he and Team Sky strenuously deny any wrongdoing. </p>
<p>Champion distance runner Mo Farah is also named. The report heavily criticises his doctor, Robin Chakraverty, for not recording the dose size of a restricted substance he injected into the athlete before the London Marathon in 2014 – Farah and Chakraverty insist they were within the rules. The report refers to “acute failures” in both British cycling and athletics around medicine procedures that urgently need addressed. </p>
<p>It amounts to one more doping controversy for elite international sport – barely two weeks after several Russian athletes were <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/winter-olympics/43186278">caught cheating</a> at the Winter Olympics. It threatens to drag cycling even further through the mud, all the worse because British cycling’s apparent anti-doping respectability always seemed central to Team Sky’s success. </p>
<p>The global system for preventing doping is not working properly and needs reform. For defenders and critics alike, here are three radical options:</p>
<h2>1. More of the same, but better</h2>
<p>Currently <a href="https://www.insidethegames.biz/articles/1048181/anti-doping-claimed-to-cost-sport-300-million-each-year">there are</a> around 300,000 drug tests a year, <a href="https://www.asada.gov.au/about-asada/finance/fees">costing</a> approximately £700-£1,000 each. They <a href="https://www.wada-ama.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/2016_anti-doping_testing_figures.pdf">catch less than</a> 2% of doping, much of it either recreational or innocuous. </p>
<p>It is <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-017-0792-1">possible that</a> up to 50% of athletes have doped. We need substantially more funding for more frequent tests to make participants really fear being caught. Obviously this would only address detectable drugs and not substances which tests cannot yet find, but this would be an improvement. </p>
<p>To achieve this, you could pay athletes less money. Rewards vary hugely of course, but for instance the winner of the Tour de France receives €500,000 in prize money – never mind the sponsorship opportunities. Cutting incomes would reduce the incentive to dope and free up cash for more testing. It would also address the problem in cycling, where the richest riders can afford the best doping doctors. </p>
<p>Second, reduce the list of banned substances to priority substances that either have the highest health risk or most potently enhance performance. Keep steroids on the list, for example, but take off cannabis. Third, raise money from sponsors and major event organisers and governments to pay for more testing.</p>
<h2>2. Monitor suppliers</h2>
<p>Despite the limited testing, one paradox with the current system is that it takes an extreme approach to keeping athletes under surveillance. Those on the registered testing pool must tell the authorities where they will be for at least an hour every day. </p>
<p>All athletes can be tested randomly at events, training facilities, their house or on holiday. When they are approached for a test, a drug control officer needs to chaperone them until they are ready to urinate. At that moment, the officer accompanies them to the bathroom to ensure the urine leaves the body and is not swapped for a prepared sample. </p>
<p>This unethical intrusion clearly does not work. Too much time and money is wasted on locating and observing athletes with little or no risk of doping. It makes clean athletes nervous that they have inadvertently used a doping substance, or that there might be a problem with the handling or laboratory processes. </p>
<p>One alternative option might be to spend less time on athletes and more on doctors and coaches. After all, it is very likely that they will be the conduit to doping. The recent history of cycling shows a small coterie of <a href="http://www.cyclingweekly.com/news/latest-news/lance-armstrong-doping-doctor-given-18-month-prison-sentence-323284">doctors</a> whose doping practices could have been stopped if the right systems had been in place. </p>
<p>In a more rigorous system, these personnel would be regularly checked, compelled to undertake anti-doping education, and face career-threatening sanctions if an athlete reported them to the authorities. </p>
<h2>3. Independent scrutiny</h2>
<p>Global anti-doping practices are overseen by the <a href="https://www.wada-ama.org">World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA)</a>, but there is no watchdog or auditor to ensure policies are fair, just and properly implemented. Governments could collectively fund such an agency. A key role would be to review anti-doping in all countries and sports to detect and prevent corruption of the testing system. </p>
<p>Perhaps each sport would even have its own agency. If that had been in place for cycling, some of the evidence released by the new UK parliamentary committee report would have been collected and WADA might have had a more hands-on role than it has had. </p>
<p>The new watchdog would also become a forum for whistleblowers and critics with new ideas for anti-doping. It would be independent enough to prevent the sorts of organisational and political conflicts of interest that <a href="http://www.sportsintegrityinitiative.com/tackling-doping-sport-removal-conflicts-interest-central/">have plagued</a> the Olympics, cycling, football and other sports. </p>
<p>Another progressive step would be to support athletes <a href="https://www.balls.ie/newsnow/new-documentary-shines-light-irish-sprinters-controversial-doping-conviction-382087">who appeal</a> against high or unjust sanctions. Currently, it’s a long and expensive process in which they are very unlikely to succeed. This would give them more trust in the system, and make them more likely to proactively support it. </p>
<p>Which of these three options would I choose? I lean towards less surveillance of and more protection for athletes – shifting more of the testing burden to doctors and other support staff. </p>
<p>The risk is that less testing of athletes could lead to more doping, so there may be a balance to be struck. Meanwhile, a global doping watchdog enforcing the kind of standards that British procedures have failed to meet might have meant that athletes like Wiggins and Farah would not have found themselves under suspicion. </p>
<p>We might never be able to achieve “clean sport”. But if we can put core values at the heart of change and accept that incremental progress is better than nothing, options like the ones I’ve laid down might mitigate the current failings.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93106/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Dimeo has previously had funding from the British Academy, Wellcome Trust, Fulbright Commission and WADA, but not related to this article.</span></em></p>Doping controversy around British cycling and athletics is the latest sign that sports authorities need to do something drastic.Paul Dimeo, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Health Sciences and Sport, University of StirlingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/921992018-02-23T16:25:46Z2018-02-23T16:25:46ZHow informal diplomacy might just get the Koreas to the negotiating table<p>As the 2018 Winter Olympics draw to a close in Pyeonchang, the medal count has taken a back seat to a remarkable diplomatic moment. International attention is being given to North and South Korea – <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10165796">still technically at war</a> after 65 years, and yet apparently making steps to reach out to each other more than at any time in recent years.</p>
<p>Only weeks before the games, an exchange of olive branches began. In the event, North Korea sent 22 qualified athletes, a 229-member cheering squad, and a delegation that included North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s younger sister, Kim Yo-jong. The Koreas fielded a unified women’s hockey team, and marched into the opening ceremony <a href="https://theconversation.com/north-and-south-korea-extend-hands-of-peace-after-symbolic-olympic-opening-ceremony-90569">under a single flag</a>. The 140-member North Korean <a href="https://theconversation.com/glad-to-meet-you-north-koreas-pop-orchestra-warms-hearts-in-the-south-91499">Samjiyon Orchestra</a> held a concert at the National Theater of Korea in Seoul to congratulate the Winter Olympics, where a former member of K-pop girl group Girl’s Generation joined a North Korean art troupe to sing songs about unification and peace.</p>
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<p>Only months before, north-south tensions were high due to North Korea’s nuclear warhead and long-range missile tests. But then Kim Jong-un said he was in principle <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-kimjongun/north-koreas-kim-open-to-dialogue-with-south-korea-will-only-use-nukes-if-threatened-idUSKBN1EQ0NJ">open to dialogue</a> with his southern counterpart, Moon Jae-in – and out of that gesture came the Olympic collaborations. So why has Kim Jong-un apparently changed course, and will the south prove genuinely receptive?</p>
<p>While North Korea will probably never explain why, the spectacle of the two countries coming together at the Winter Olympics indicates that Kim has taken note of Moon’s attitude. The southern president has adopted a far warmer tone than his predecessors Park Geun-hye and Lee Myung-bak, and is at odds with the harsher pronouncements of the Trump administration. (US vice-president, Mike Pence, attended the games, but a scheduled meeting with the North Koreans <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/20/mike-pence-north-korea-olympic-games-meeting-cancelled">fell through</a>). </p>
<p>As far as Kim is concerned, Moon has opened up space for Track II, or unofficial, inter-Korean diplomacy – perhaps the North’s current best chance to get proper negotiations started, and alleviate the harsh conditions that have been imposed from outside.</p>
<h2>Strategic optimism</h2>
<p>The term “track II diplomacy” was coined in 1981 by Joseph V. Montville, a former foreign service officer in the US State Department. In his article, “The Arrow and the Olive Branch: A Case for Track Two Diplomacy,” Montville argues that the diplomats and leaders of Track I, or official, diplomacy are faced with certain limitations, such as the need to be strong, wary, and indomitable in the face of the enemy. Moreover, he assumes that the resources and procedures of formal diplomacy may not be enough to resolve the fundamental issues that underpin seemingly intractable and long-running conflicts. </p>
<p>As Montville wrote: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Track II diplomacy is unofficial, non-structured interaction. It is always open minded, often altruistic, and … strategically optimistic, based on best case analysis. Its underlying assumption is that actual or potential conflict can be resolved or eased by appealing to common human capabilities to respond to good will and reasonableness.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>To be sure, this sort of engagement is not a substitute for Track I negotiation. But it has the capability of playing a complementary role to official processes, not least by helping two parties break the psychological barriers to formal, official negotiation.</p>
<p>Montville’s analysis helps explain why Kim Jong-un might have chosen to use Track II outreach to an olive branch to South Korea, rather than resorting to formal Track I methods – and why he might have done so now.</p>
<p>North Korea is currently struggling under the weight of tough economic sanctions, imposed as punishment for cyber attacks, money laundering and the nuclear programme. The sanctions seriously restrict the North’s energy supplies, such as gasoline and diesel, and clamp down on smuggling and the employment of North Korean workers overseas. The North’s economy is already in trouble – and it looks to be headed for worse. </p>
<p>As argued by Montville, Kim Jong-un is constrained by the understandable need for him to be, or at least be seen as, strong, wary, and indomitable in the face of the South Korean government. He cannot afford to look weak, or to be seen as giving into pressure from the international community. By turning to track II diplomatic endeavours as his main channel to achieve his objectives, Kim is able to save face and avoid being perceived as weak. </p>
<p>Kim Jong-un has, therefore, initiated and agreed to the recent series of events surrounding the 2018 Winter Olympics, to help compensate for his inability to maintain his state’s current economic position.</p>
<h2>Warming up</h2>
<p>The performance by the North Korean art troupe and the unified hockey team seem to demonstrate that North Korea is genuinely interested in improving relations with South Korea and building a collaborative relationship. And crucially, the events seem to have created a spirit of comradeship among everyday South Koreans.</p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.dw.com/en/majority-of-south-koreans-favor-north-korea-friendship/a-42643399">poll</a> conducted on February 15 – halfway through the Winter Olympics – found that 61.5% of South Korean adults were in favor of inter-Korean dialogues between Moon and Kim Jong-un. Although the polling results may not be a direct result of the spectacle at the games, it does underline that a majority of South Koreans are friendly enough towards the North that their leaders can confidently make some kind of overture.</p>
<p>Having officially invited his counterpart to visit North Korea after the Olympics were over, Kim Jong-un might just have opened a path to real negotiations. If Moon and Kim do sit down at a formal bilateral summit, they’ll have plenty to talk about besides the nuclear issue. They might discuss re-opening the once-shared <a href="https://www.nknews.org/gallery/in-photos-whats-become-of-the-mount-kumgang-tourism-resort/">Mount Kumgang Tourist Region</a> and the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22011178">Kaesong Industrial Complex</a>, where southern companies until recently employed northern workers. </p>
<p>Set against the challenge of clearing the peninsula of nuclear weapons, these might sound like small steps – but until recently, even they seemed impossible. The two Koreas, however, have to start somewhere.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/92199/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Priscilla Jung Kim does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>North Korea clearly understands that going straight into high-level negotiations isn’t always the way to make a breakthrough.Priscilla Jung Kim, Ph.D. Candidate, University of Central LancashireLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/919362018-02-19T13:40:58Z2018-02-19T13:40:58ZWere Team GB’s skeleton suits responsible for fantastic three medal haul?<p>Team GB skeleton rider Lizzie Yarnold won a <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/winter-olympics/42981272">stunning Winter Olympic gold</a> on February 17, backed up by bronzes for Laura Deas and Dom Parsons. Thanks to drag-resistant ridges, 3D laser scanning and topnotch material, Team GB’s skeleton suits are <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/feb/12/gb-skeleton-pyeongchang-skin-suits-british-cycling">said to</a> have provided up to a one-second advantage per run over the rest of the field and have been a hot topic of <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/winter-olympics-2018/2018/02/15/2018-winter-olympics-british-skeleton-suits-create-controversy/339893002/">controversy</a>. </p>
<p>What makes these revolutionary suits so speedy – and just how important were these technological innovations in Team GB’s riders’ success? The Conversation put these questions to Nick Martin, senior lecturer in Aerodynamics at Northumbria University.</p>
<p><strong>How do the suits give the riders their extra speed?</strong></p>
<p>The aerodynamics of a skeleton bobsled and rider are complex, and our knowledge of fluid mechanics is far from complete. This creates opportunities for research and development programmes that push the frontiers of our aerodynamic understanding to produce technological innovations that give riders an all-important edge.</p>
<p>Drag is the aerodynamic force that opposes an object’s motion through air and slows it down. Only about 10% of the drag force acting on skeleton riders comes from the bobsled, meaning that the greatest potential for improving the time it takes to traverse the 1,376.38 meter track in Pyeongchang is to optimising the aerodynamics of the athletes themselves.</p>
<p>The drag acting on the riders comes from two sources. Air moving close to the athletes’ bodies moves slower than air further away, causing friction along the athletes’ skin suits. In addition, as athletes move down the track, air directly in front of them becomes more compressed and air behind them becomes less dense. This pressure difference acts to both “push” against the athletes from the front and “pull” them back at the same time, slowing them down.</p>
<p>Pressure drag accounts for more than 90% of the overall drag on both the rider and bobsled. The amount of pressure drag is influenced by the shape of the athlete, so aerodynamics experts can most effectively attempt to make performance gains by refining the athletes’ helmets and suits.</p>
<p>Skeleton suits are made out of an elastic material called polyurethane. All teams use this material, but the addition of drag-resistant ridges and the use of 3D scanning allows the suit designers to make subtle changes to the athletes’ shape that seems to set apart Team GB’s suits. This fine tuning is comparable to the careful design engineering of Formula One cars and aeroplanes to perfect their aerodynamic behaviour.</p>
<p>The drag-resistant ridges on Team GB’s suits introduce turbulence into the thin layer of air surrounding the athlete, known as the boundary layer. A turbulent boundary layer actually causes more skin friction, but is less likely to separate when it encounters a seam in the skin suit, a folded ridge of material, or a curved surface. Separation creates pockets of low-pressure, slow-moving air, too much of which can cause large increases in pressure drag. The ridges minimise pressure drag, surmounting the increased skin friction to provide the riders with that extra bit of oomph.</p>
<p>Any loose “flapping” material from the riders’ skin suits also causes air separation. By 3D laser scanning athletes, the suit manufacturers can create bespoke, close-fitting suits for each rider, reducing the amount of loose material. 3D scans can also be used in computer simulations to model how air flows over the rider and bobsled in order to analyse where any improvements can be made.</p>
<p><strong>How much of a speed advantage do you think the suits provided?</strong></p>
<p>A very liberal estimate of a 5% reduction in pressure drag would result in an approximate time saving of less than half a second. Most of the drag savings can be made just by an athlete having a sensible, close-fitting skin suit, which most of the athletes already have, further reducing the benefits of the ridges and 3D scanning.</p>
<p>So, the claims of a one-second advantage are exaggerated. But from my experience working in Formula One, it is marginal gains of fractions of a percent that can make the difference to the top athletes. Let’s not forget that Laura Deas only took her bronze by <a href="https://www.olympic.org/pyeongchang-2018/results/resOWG2018/pdf/OWG2018/SKN/OWG2018_SKN_C73B2_SKNWSINGLES-----------------------.pdf">a margin</a> of 0.02 seconds.</p>
<p><strong>Is this fair and if so, why isn’t everyone using them?</strong></p>
<p>The suits were checked by the sport’s governing body and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/feb/14/rival-athletes-legality-team-gb-skin-suit-winter-olympics">ruled to be legal</a>. Technology plays an important part in sports science. If it is correctly regulated to allow all competitors to profit from it, then this is a good thing. </p>
<p>The research that goes into drag reduction techniques could well be transferable to other engineering disciplines, which could have a benefit to the wider society. </p>
<p>I think that this is just an opportunity missed by other teams. Team GB has clearly invested in the technology aspect of sports. I would like to see more open funding for this type of research, so that more athletes can benefit.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91936/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nicholas Martin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The science behind the suits that gave Britain’s medal-winning athletes a crucial speed boost.Nicholas Martin, Senior Lecturer in Aerodynamics, Northumbria University, NewcastleLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/912692018-02-12T09:42:42Z2018-02-12T09:42:42ZWinter Olympics: how athletes adapt to competing in the bitter cold<p>In the days before the Winter Olympics began, athletes reported that the weather in PyeongChang, South Korea was so cold that some ski equipment <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-olympics-2018-alps-skis/cold-weather-turning-skis-to-garbage-in-pyeongchang-idUSKBN1FR0F5">had warped</a>. There are suggestions the games <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2018/02/08/sport/pyeongchang-olympics-cold-weather-trnd/index.html">could be some</a> of the coldest on record. </p>
<p>The Winter Olympics represent the pinnacle of four years of intensive training and competition for the world’s best winter sports athletes. These athletes will have spent thousands of hours planning, training and finetuning their performances in preparation for their time on the Olympic stage. </p>
<p>The one thing they cannot control is the weather. But they can prepare to adapt to the cold competition environment and employ <a href="https://www.digitaltrends.com/wearables/smart-clothing-is-the-future-of-wearables/">smart clothing</a>, enhanced by technology, to maximise their chances of winning a medal. </p>
<h2>What the cold does to our bodies</h2>
<p>Researchers are divided about whether exercise in the cold has a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10066703">positive</a> or <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Effect+of+ambient+temperature+on+endurance+performance+while+wearing+cross-country+skiing+clothing">negative</a> impact on sporting performance.</p>
<p>Exposure to the cold causes an initial reduction in skin temperature followed by a drop in core body temperature. In order to defend against a damaging decline in body temperature and the onset of hypothermia, the body reduces blood flow to the skin and generates its own heat through shivering. Redistribution of blood flow is one of the primary defence mechanisms in the face of cold exposure. However, in the extremities, this mechanism causes a loss of <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9843526">dexterity in the fingers</a> and toes. This has a detrimental effects in sports such as <a href="http://www.biathlonworld.com/">biathlon</a>, where fine finger movement and control is vital during the shooting parts of the competition.</p>
<p>If exposure to the cold continues, a further drop in body temperature can occur which lowers muscle temperature. Muscles need to be warm in order to produce powerful contractions so this can have a negative impact on power events, such as in the bobsleigh and skeleton, where generating optimal muscle power is vital in powering the sled or skeleton <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ntgfAb736c">down the start ramp</a>. Increasing muscle temperature, through the use of a warm-up, is vital for improving muscle function, especially as for every 1°C increase in muscle temperature, there is a <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/3678224">2% increase in the power a muscle</a> can produce.</p>
<h2>Beating the cold</h2>
<p>Unlike frequent <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28177747">exposure to the heat</a>, adaptation to the cold is an incredibly slow process. There are three main steps to this process. </p>
<p>If you repeatedly expose yourself to a stimulus, such as the cold, your body does get used to it. The more used you get to the cold, the less your body reacts to it, so you may shiver less or have less of a change in blood flow. If you repeatedly took a cold bath or shower day on consecutive days, you would gradually <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4580772/">get used to the cold temperatures</a>. This process appears to involve a reduction in the shock response generated by the nervous system on exposure to the cold.</p>
<p>After prolonged exposure to the cold lasting many days or weeks, a person’s resting metabolic rate gradually <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26924539">increases</a> as a result of the body generating more heat as a byproduct of converting food to energy.</p>
<p>Habituation to the cold can also increase the insulation of the body core and result in improved retention of body heat, as less blood flows to the skin and so less heat is lost to the surrounding environment. Another effect of longer-term adaptation is an increase in body fat, which helps to preserve body temperature. However, this response is often very slow, occurring over <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/31/12829094/inuit-greenland-denisovan-genome-cold-brown-fat">many generations of living in a cold environment</a>.</p>
<p>Some of these responses to the cold will be unlikely to occur in the short term. But, following years of training in the cold mountains, athletes are likely to have experienced cold adaptation which will help boost their performance.</p>
<h2>The role of technology</h2>
<p>Clothes, particularly those enhanced by technology, can help athletes to maintain the optimal body temperature required to achieve peak performance. Research has found that increasing clothing insulation via <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22935735">electrical heating</a> pads within a garment during a warm-up and immediately after a sprint has positive benefits on performance. </p>
<p>In explosive sports such as the skeleton and bobsleigh, where the speed achieved during the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MUs_Ftqi2c">sprint start</a> has a huge impact on the overall time of the sled, maintaining muscle temperature is very important. In a series of studies, my colleagues and I demonstrated that wearing these heating garments reduced the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23974847">decline in muscle temperature</a> and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22935735">improved sprinting performance</a>. In essence, the effect was similar to that used in Formula 1 when technicians wrap tyre warmers around a car’s wheels to increase the temperature and maximise grip on the track. </p>
<p>Similar technology is now being employed by a number of athletes during the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-19063554">Summer</a> and Winter Olympic Games to maximise their performance potential. Research into this technology is <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/team-gbs-cutting-edge-uk-sport-is-more-than-ever-using-the-latest-military-technology-secrets-to-8869938.html">often supported by national federations</a> in order to help their athletes perform at their peak.</p>
<p>So, as you watch the athletes competing in Pyeongchang, spare a thought for the immense effort that has got these athletes to the games. Not only their commitment to training, and technological development, but the ways in which their bodies have adapted to be able to perform near the edge of human capability in such an extreme environment.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91269/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Techniques and technology can help athletes perform at their best even in freezing temperatures.Steve Faulkner, Senior lecturer, Nottingham Trent UniversityKaty Griggs, Lecturer in Sport and Exercise Science, Oxford Brookes UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/912382018-02-12T00:41:44Z2018-02-12T00:41:44ZLive from Pyeongchang: how an Olympic broadcast works<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205643/original/file-20180209-180808-4998kh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sporting events like the Winter Olympics are one of TV's most valuable products.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Reuters/Fabrizio Bensch</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Most major sports events that appear on our screens follow a similar broadcast model. TV stations pay for the broadcast rights and then employ the production crew – including expert camera operators, producers and talent – to take the event from the confines of a stadium to a spectacle viewed by millions.</p>
<p>It’s costly but worth it. Sport is one of TV’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/are-sport-broadcast-rights-worth-the-money-37460">most valuable products</a>.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/are-sport-broadcast-rights-worth-the-money-37460">Are sport broadcast rights worth the money?</a>
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<p>But at a major event like the 2018 Pyeongchang Olympics (which many are now tuning into), where the International Olympic Committee (IOC) sells broadcast rights to multiple regions, this would become a logistical nightmare. </p>
<p>So, instead of the Australian rights holder, Channel 7, setting up its cameras on a downhill skiing course next to other overseas broadcasters, the video is delivered globally through a central service.</p>
<h2>What is the Olympic Broadcasting Service?</h2>
<p>While earlier broadcasts were a combination of the organising committee working with local broadcasters to make a feed to be delivered around the world, the IOC in 2001 created a dedicated ongoing department, the <a href="https://www.obs.tv">Olympic Broadcasting Service</a>. </p>
<p>The service has run the full broadcast since the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, when it hired 2,500 temporary staff – including camera operators, technical staff, commentators and reporters – to deliver 800 hours of live coverage. In Sochi in 2014 that rose to 1,300 hours of coverage delivered by more than 3,400 staff.</p>
<p>However, the Winter Olympics are small fry compared to Summer Olympics. At the 2016 Rio Olympics, more than 7,200 Olympic Broadcasting Service staff created the broadcast, with 1,000 cameras delivering 7,100 hours of footage. That turned into more than 350,000 hours of coverage <a href="https://www.obs.tv/fact_file?tab=rio">broadcast globally</a>.</p>
<p>And, for the first time, more hours were broadcast on digital platforms from Rio than on traditional TV. </p>
<h2>The role of rights holders</h2>
<p>The Olympic Broadcasting Service model is that a neutral feed with independent commentary is sent out to rights-holding broadcasters in real time. They can either take that feed or push in their own commentary over the top.</p>
<p>This is why, if you are in Australia, you are likely to see specialist commentators drop in to events where Australians might do well. For example, multiple world champion Jacqui Cooper will offer expert comments on aerial skiing alongside Australian hosts. But you might hear a Canadian accent if Channel 7 simply takes the Olympic Broadcasting Service feed for, say, curling.</p>
<p>For others, the service becomes the base for a much-expanded production. NBC’s Olympic production for Pyeongchang includes additional cameras in venue to supplement the Olympic Broadcasting Service, <a href="http://nbcsportsgrouppressbox.com/2018/01/24/nbc-olympics-announces-record-89-commentators-for-coverage-of-the-xxiii-olympic-winter-games-from-pyeongchang-south-korea/">89 of their own expert commentators</a> and 13 studio sets.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.newscaststudio.com/2018/01/03/nbc-olympics-pyeongchang-preview/">The largest set</a> is a 325-square-metre dome that includes a giant video wall, 18 monitors, 15 different locations for reporters to deliver pieces-to-camera, plus an anchor desk, interview areas and a news update desk.</p>
<p>But in an era of shrinking media budgets, there will also be more broadcasts from off-location. NBC will have a further five studios based in the US. Channel 7 anchored Rio Olympics shows back in Australia as well as in Brazil.</p>
<p>This approach isn’t necessarily exclusive to Olympics. Commentary on ATP tennis tour events is often recorded in London studios, rather than on site: technology increasingly allows this to be an option. </p>
<h2>A new reality</h2>
<p>Olympics have often provided the impetus for large-scale broadcasting innovations. For instance, TV was introduced in Australia for the 1956 Games in Melbourne.</p>
<p>The Olympic Broadcasting Service production at Rio was the first to use drones, captured footage in 8K Super Hi-Vision footage (which is so far available only on a limited number of <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2016/8/2/12349954/8k-broadcasts-start-japan-nhk">screens in Japan</a>), and also made content available in virtual reality.</p>
<p>In Pyeongchang, networks such as <a href="https://www.broadbandtvnews.com/2018/01/30/eurosport-to-charge-e0-99-for-winter-olympics-vr-coverage/">Eurosport</a> and <a href="http://variety.com/2018/digital/news/nbc-2018-winter-olympics-vr-virtual-reality-live-streaming-1202657978/">NBC</a> will broadcast <a href="https://www.sporttechie.com/inside-intel-plans-capture-2018-pyeongchang-olympics-virtual-reality">virtual reality content</a> live for the first time.</p>
<p>At each Olympics fans can simply expect more coverage as networks move to capitalise on content across multiple screens. But it won’t necessarily come cheap.</p>
<p>Other markets may be used to paying a premium for major events through pay TV channels, so Eurosport and NBC charging for their virtual reality access may not raise too many eyebrows. But Australia is an interesting case: sporting events of major significance are on <a href="https://theconversation.com/anti-siphoning-changes-a-blow-to-sports-fans-who-want-to-watch-on-free-to-air-tv-78666">an anti-siphoning list</a> that ensures these are broadcast on free-to-air TV. </p>
<p>The only way Australians could watch the entire feed produced from the Rio Games was to purchase a premium A$19.99 app, which was <a href="https://thenewdaily.com.au/sport/rio-olympics-2016/2016/08/08/rio-olympics-2016-channel-7/">much criticised</a>. This time Channel 7’s communications suggest that all content will be available for free on the app, but <a href="https://tvtonight.com.au/2018/02/2018-winter-olympics-guide.html">a premium A$14.99 upgrade</a> will offer less commercial content, and HD coverage.</p>
<p>It will be interesting to see if this option is popular and, if so, whether it works more effectively than before.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91238/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Merryn Sherwood receives funding from the Australian Research Council.</span></em></p>Olympics have often provided the impetus for large-scale broadcasting innovations, such as when TV was introduced in Australia to broadcast the 1956 Games.Merryn Sherwood, Lecturer in Sports Journalism, La Trobe UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/912602018-02-09T11:18:41Z2018-02-09T11:18:41ZWinter Olympics: why it’s wrong that Russian athletes are guilty until proven innocent<p>Just hours before the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, a group of 47 Russian athletes who had hoped to compete in South Korea, were <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-42999126">denied</a> the chance to do so when their appeal was turned down the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS). </p>
<p>In December 2017, the International Olympic Committe (IOC) <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/05/sports/olympics/ioc-russia-winter-olympics.html">banned Russian athletes</a> from competing because of alleged systematic manipulation of the anti-doping system in the 2014 Sochi Olympics. </p>
<p>The IOC made provision for individual Russian athletes who could prove their innocence – by providing evidence from independent testing – to participate as an “Olympic Athlete from Russia” (OAR). There will be 169 Russian athletes competing at the Games under this route. However, this leaves the possibility that there might be innocent athletes who cannot compete because they could not prove their innocence.</p>
<p>The IOC’s decision to ban all Russian athletes until they are proven innocent amounts to a collective punishment of an entire national Olympic team, including coaches and top officials. But based on my ongoing research into the case I believe the initial ban was not supported by solid evidence</p>
<h2>Bans and appeals</h2>
<p>The 47 Russian athletes and coaches whose last-minute appeals were overturned by CAS on February 9, included a group of 28 athletes whose lifetime bans for doping had been <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-doping-olympics-russia/cas-overturns-doping-bans-on-28-russian-athletes-idUSKBN1FL4ET">overturned</a> on February 1 by the same court. </p>
<p>After examining 39 cases, and for the first time <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/winter-sports/42674331">cross-examining</a> Grigory Rodchenkov – the former director of the Russian Anti-Doping Agency, whose <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/13/sports/russia-doping-sochi-olympics-2014.html?_r=2">whisteblowing</a> led to the bans – CAS <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-doping-olympics-russia/cas-overturns-doping-bans-on-28-russian-athletes-idUSKBN1FL4ET">overturned 28</a> lifetime bans, saying there was insufficient evidence that they broke the rules. Those whose bans were lifted included Alexander Tretyakov, who won a skeleton gold at Sochi. </p>
<p>But within hours of announcing the decision, both the IOC and World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) <a href="https://www.onenewspage.co.uk/n/Sports/75ip924w2/Olympics-CAS-ruling-surprising-and-disappointing-says-Bach.htm">expressed their disappointment</a> with it and <a href="http://www.france24.com/en/20180204-ioc-chief-urges-sports-court-reform-after-russia-bans-lifted">called for</a> reforms to CAS.</p>
<p>A few days later, on February 5, the IOC Invitation Review Panel headed by the former French minister of sport Valerie Fourneyron defied CAS’s ruling and said the IOC <a href="https://www.olympic.org/news/request-to-invite-15-athletes-and-coaches-to-pyeongchang-2018-for-the-olympic-athlete-from-russia-group-declined">still had</a> “suspicions about the integrity of these athletes”. It <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-olympics-2018-russia/olympics-no-pyeongchang-invite-for-cas-cleared-russians-ioc-idUSKBN1FP18O">ruled</a> that 15 of the 28 athletes who’d had their bans overturned and who had requested to compete in South Korea would not be able to.</p>
<h2>No evidence of ‘state manipulation’</h2>
<p>The IOC was careful not to use the word “state-manipulated” system in its December 2017 <a href="https://www.olympic.org/news/ioc-suspends-russian-noc-and-creates-a-path-for-clean-individual-athletes-to-compete-in-pyeongchang-2018-under-the-olympic-flag">announcement</a>. But Russian officials, who deny the charges, have said it has been <a href="http://www.sportsintegrityinitiative.com/kolobkov-interview-shows-russia-cannot-meet-wadas-conditions/">made clear to them</a> that responding to this allegation is a key condition for reinstating the suspended Russian National Olympic Committee.</p>
<p>Following <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/13/sports/russia-doping-sochi-olympics-2014.html?_r=2">allegations</a> of widespread doping practices made by Rodchenkov in early 2016, WADA launched an inquiry led by the Canadian lawyer Richard McLaren, who is also a CAS member. His <a href="https://www.wada-ama.org/sites/default/files/resources/files/20160718_ip_report_newfinal.pdf">findings were published</a> in July 2016. </p>
<p>Despite Russia raising questions over the <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/russia-putin-olympic-doping-whistle-blower-rodchenkov-a-jerk/29007755.html">credibility</a> of the Rodchenkov as a witness, McLaren found he was a credible person, and concluded that:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The surprise result of the Sochi investigation was the revelation of the extent of state oversight and directed control of the Moscow Laboratory in processing, and covering up urine samples of Russian athletes from virtually all sports before and after the Sochi Games.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The political tone of the debate about the report was set several days before its publication in <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-doping-russia-usada-exclusive/exclusive-nados-some-athletes-want-total-russia-ban-if-doping-report-damning-idUSKCN0ZW0XH">a leaked letter </a> drafted by the chief executive of the United States Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), Travis Tygart, and his Canadian counterpart Paul Melia. The letter called for drastic action and to immediately suspend the Russian Olympic and Paralympic Committees from the Olympic Movement. USADA also <a href="https://www.irishtimes.com/sport/other-sports/pat-hickey-slams-report-calling-for-outright-russian-olympic-ban-1.2725073">approached several</a> National Olympic Committees to garner support for the call in a serious serious breach of the independent process of investigation. </p>
<p>It would be naïve to decouple this report and the ban that followed from the current geopolitical context where Russia has been subjected to a systematic campaign of discreditation and political and economic <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2017/07/25/europe/russia-sanctions-explainer/index.html">sanctions</a> led by the US.</p>
<p>The word “state” is not used in the <a href="https://www.wada-ama.org/en/resources/doping-control-process/mclaren-independent-investigation-report-part-ii">second part</a> of McLaren’s report, published in December 2016. The allegation of a state-sponsored programme was quietly dropped, replaced by an allegation of an “institutionalised” doping conspiracy. This important change of wording was also noted by a subsequent report commissioned by the IOC into the case by the former president of Switzerland, Samuel Schmid. He <a href="https://stillmed.olympic.org/media/Document%20Library/OlympicOrg/IOC/Who-We-Are/Commissions/Disciplinary-Commission/IOC-DC-Schmid/IOC-Disciplinary-Commission-Schmid-Report.pdf#_ga=2.266293837.337422065.1517832823-1277377352.1517832823">found no evidence</a> in support of McLaren’s initial claims for state involvement.</p>
<p>McLaren had <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/trackandfield/richard-mclaren-russian-doping-wada-1.3314048">admitted this</a> himself in an interview with Canadian CBC Sport in late 2015: “We don’t have any evidence of a systematic, state-wide doping mechanism. If we did, we would have published it, and so we have to go on the inference.” </p>
<h2>A question of integrity</h2>
<p>Integrity is the crux of the matter. But it’s a characteristic not only of individuals and organisations, but of the processes involved in how evidence used to make independent, unbiased judgements is acquired. The ends cannot justify the means. </p>
<p>While it claims to be protecting the integrity of sport, I believe the McLaren report and the IOC’s subsequent decisions to ban Russian athletes have actually contributed to undermining it. </p>
<p>A dangerous precedent has been established in international sport policy. Against the norm of international law and the presumption of innocence until proved guilty, a collective punishment has been issued on the entire sport system of a country and its athletes, who were then charged to prove their innocence. This cannot be right.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/91260/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vassil Girginov does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The politics of Russia’s Olympic doping ban.Vassil Girginov, Reader in Sports Management and Development, Brunel University LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/904112018-02-08T09:57:15Z2018-02-08T09:57:15ZHow the Winter Olympics expanded – and brought growing pains with them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/203296/original/file-20180124-107971-wx3vdp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Alpine skiing at the 1952 Winter Olympics in Oslo, Norway. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/18673_Vinter-OL_1952_-_slal%C3%A5m.jpg">By P.A. Røstad via Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the International Olympic Committee (IOC) <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2011/jul/06/ioc-pyeongchang-2018-winter-olympics">announced</a> that PyeongChang would host the 2018 Winter Olympic Games, most people outside of South Korea had probably never heard of it, let alone knew that the eastern part of the country had snow and mountains. </p>
<p>The shift in the type of place capable of hosting such a mega sporting event demonstrated how much the Winter Olympics has grown – but this change also brought with it a set of problems unforseen when the event began in 1924.</p>
<p>Figure skating first appeared on the Olympic programme in 1908, and ice hockey in 1920, but these events were part of the summer games. The first Winter Olympics took place in the French alpine village of Chamonix in 1924. The organisers of the Paris Olympics that year wanted to offer an International Sports Week at the beginning of the year with solely winter sports as an experiment. Only after its success did the IOC decide to call the Chamonix event the Winter Olympics. </p>
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<p>The first few Winter Olympics took place in ski resort towns known to winter sport enthusiasts: St. Moritz, Switzerland in 1928, Lake Placid, US in 1932 and Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany in 1936. In the 1930s the US and Germany hosted both the Summer and Winter Olympics because the IOC allowed the country which won the right to host the summer games to decide whether they wanted to organise the winter ones too. If they did not – or could not in the case of the Netherlands in 1928 – then the IOC opened up the bidding to other countries.</p>
<p>The Winter Olympics has always been significantly smaller than its summer counterpart in terms of the number of sports contested and number of countries competing. Just over 250 athletes competed in Chamonix, and it took until the 1964 games in Innsbruck, Austria, for more than 1,000 athletes to compete. Fewer than <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2014/01/08/world/europe/russia-sochi-numbers/index.html">3,000 athletes</a> competed in Sochi in 2014, whereas more than <a href="https://www.olympic.org/news/rio-2016-sets-records-on-the-field-of-play-and-online-1">11,000 athletes</a> competed in the 2016 Rio Olympics.</p>
<h2>No more village ski resorts</h2>
<p>Although still significantly smaller than the summer event, the growth of the Winter Olympics to include 102 events across 15 sports at PyeongChang, alongside its global media coverage, means that the games no longer take place in small ski resort villages. Instead, larger cities have bid for and hosted the Winter Games in the past few decades. </p>
<p>Urban centres provide many of the required amenities for a successful Olympics: huge venues for the opening and closing ceremonies, sizeable indoor arenas for ice hockey and figure skating, facilities to accommodate the world’s media, and thousands of hotel rooms for all of the spectators. However, those same larger cities tend to be further away from tall mountains and the higher altitudes needed to ensure sufficient snowfall and cold temperatures for the outdoor events of skiing, snowboarding, and the sliding sports of bobsled, skeleton, and luge. </p>
<p>At the 2010 Vancouver games, even with the widening of the highway that leads from the city to the mountains at Whistler, it still took nearly two hours to reach the mountain venues. The organisers put on buses for those spectators who purchased tickets to events in the mountain to minimise traffic on the highway. After the initial ticket allocation, only Canadians with a postal code within a small radius of Whistler were permitted to <a href="https://thetyee.ca/News/2014/02/13/Vancouver-Olympics-Problems/">purchase the remaining tickets</a> to some of the mountain events.</p>
<h2>Further and further from the mountains</h2>
<p>One of the reasons the IOC selected the Korean city for the 2018 event was to <a href="https://www.olympic.org/news/ioc-elects-pyeongchang-as-the-host-city-of-2018-olympic-winter-games">spread winter sport</a> to a new part of the world which had not held the Winter Olympics. But aside from concerns about the post-Olympic use of these venues in a country where <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/gallery/2018/jan/20/south-korea-abandoned-ski-resort-near-to-winter-olympics-venue-in-pictures">participation in skiing has declined</a>, logistics for spectators will be challenging.</p>
<p>The PyeongChang organisers recommend that visitors use the high-speed train from Seoul which opened in December 2017. However, a major Korean holiday falls during the Winter Olympics and the majority of seats on the train have already been reserved. International spectators who purchased special train passes for the games are now <a href="https://www.koreaexpose.com/korails-pyeongchang-olympic-discrimination/">unable to book seats</a> on trains to take them to the Olympic events. There have also been concerns about accommodation shortages. </p>
<p>The next Winter Olympics in Beijing in 2022 will be ever more spread out between venues. As larger cities further away from the mountains host the Winter Olympics, the games feel more disjointed for both athletes and spectators. Fans must decide where to stay and may decide not even to bother attending any mountain events. The organisers for recent Winter Games have built two Olympic villages, one in the city and another in the mountains, separating athletes instead of them all living together. </p>
<p>Future hosts for the Winter Olympics have to find a way to balance the interests of athletes, spectators, and post-event use of facilities. This challenge will not be easily solved, although recent past host cities – such as Salt Lake City – putting their hat in the ring to host the Winter Olympics again may be one solution.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90411/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Heather Dichter does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The long winter Olympic journey from Chamonix in 1924 to PyeongChang in 2018.Heather Dichter, Associate Professor, Leicester Castle Business School, De Montfort UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/908172018-02-08T00:15:47Z2018-02-08T00:15:47ZWill the Olympics’ green makeover have lasting effects?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205357/original/file-20180207-74501-hh03s2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Rising global temperatures may make many cities too warm to host the Winter Games in the future. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Matthias Schrader)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Every couple of years, billions of dollars flow into an Olympic host city and its environs for the construction of enormous stadiums, guest hotels and athlete accommodations. </p>
<p>In the past decade, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has emphasized the measures taken to make these projects — and the Games themselves — sustainable.</p>
<p>But in a world where reducing carbon emissions is an overriding priority, is there still room for the Olympics? </p>
<p>Staging the Olympics comes with a huge environmental footprint. Flying an estimated <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/-frontier/the-environmental-impact-_b_11581162.html">28,500 athletes and staff to Brazil</a> for the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio generated more than <a href="https://quantis-intl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/rio-2016-carbon-jul2016-ing.pdf">2,000 kilotonnes</a> (kt) of greenhouse gases (GHG) — not to mention the 2,500 kt of GHGs associated with bringing in about <a href="http://www.climatechangenews.com/2012/08/13/rio-2016-olympic-organisers-promise-greenest-games-yet/">half a million</a> spectators. </p>
<p>What’s worse is that the investments made for the Olympics often end up being wasted. After the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, training fields and pools, a beach volleyball court and a hockey stadium were all <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/gallery/2014/aug/13/abandoned-athens-olympic-2004-venues-10-years-on-in-pictures">left to rot</a>, and the Rio facilities look to be <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/sport/gallery/2017/feb/10/rios-olympic-venues-six-months-on-in-pictures">on the same track</a>. </p>
<h2>The Winter Olympics</h2>
<p>The issue of environmental impacts is increasingly important to the Winter Games.</p>
<p>When researchers at the University of Waterloo used climate-change models to look at previous Winter Games locations and predictions of future winter weather, they found that only <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/01/11/climate/winter-olympics-global-warming.html">12 of the 21 previous hosts</a> could be relied upon to repeat the task in a warmer future. </p>
<p>Many of the places that once cheered on the skiers and bobsledders sliding across snow and ice may be too warm by mid-century to host another Winter Olympics. Reducing the environmental impact of the Games — and greenhouse gases in particular — takes on a special significance when the very future of the event is at stake. </p>
<p>The 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games in Vancouver generated about <a href="http://sportmatters.ca/sites/default/files/content/the_olympic_games_impact_study_-_games-time_report_2011-05-11.pdf">278 kt</a> of greenhouse gases between 2005 and 2010. The vast majority, 87 per cent, were associated with getting almost 2,800 athletes, 10,000 journalists and as many as <a href="http://www.nineoclock.ro/2010-winter-olympics-record-attendance-in-vancouver/">half a million</a> spectators to Vancouver and out to event venues. </p>
<p>In fact, Vancouver was touted as hosting one of the <a href="http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=33764#.Wnn2jKinFQI">greenest Games ever</a>. Some of this had to do with smart planning and the relative concentration of event venues in Whistler and Vancouver. But keep in mind that the Winter Olympics host fewer medal events and thus involve less movement of people overall. </p>
<p>Pyeongchang, in comparison, is gushing GHGs. Organizers estimate about <a href="https://www.pyeongchang2018.com/en/sustainability/story/outcome">1,590 kt</a> will have been released by the end of the Games. That huge increase in emissions may be due to the distance involved in moving athletes and spectators to the Korean peninsula — or simply because we have improved the way we <a href="http://ec.gc.ca/cc/default.asp?lang=En&n=BE705779-1">calculate environmental footprints</a> for large and complex events. </p>
<p>But we can be fairly certain that the increase in emissions for the Pyeongchang Games aren’t due to an massive influx of spectators — in fact, one of the big concerns about Pyeongchang seems to be the <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/rachelpremack/2017/12/14/korea-is-getting-seriously-worried-about-low-olympics-ticket-sales/#2c8727e6fd39">low ticket sales</a>. </p>
<h2>Green Games?</h2>
<p>The IOC has taken many positive steps in an attempt to “green” the Games. Its comprehensive <a href="http://extrassets.olympic.org/sustainability-strategy/#_ga=2.197300845.359944782.1517323667-662287701.1517068302">sustainability strategy</a> leans on five strategic areas — infrastructure, material sourcing, mobility, workforce and climate — to reduce the environmental footprint associated with construction and transportation, and to leave the host city with better infrastructure. </p>
<p>Despite the guidance, it doesn’t always work. For example, the organizers of the <a href="https://www.edie.net/library/Rio-2016-Olympics-sustainability-carbon-emissions-air-and-water-quality/6719">2016 Rio Olympics</a> promised to <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/rio-olympics-sewage-1.3704804">restore the city’s waterways</a> through investments in the sanitation system. Even with strong planning, the Olympics do not always meet their green potential. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205359/original/file-20180207-74479-10ajwn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/205359/original/file-20180207-74479-10ajwn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205359/original/file-20180207-74479-10ajwn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205359/original/file-20180207-74479-10ajwn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205359/original/file-20180207-74479-10ajwn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205359/original/file-20180207-74479-10ajwn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/205359/original/file-20180207-74479-10ajwn4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Trash floats in Guanabara Bay in Rio de Janeiro in August 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Leo Correa)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One area where the Olympics have achieved some success is in the use of carbon offsets, which is, in essence, paying for emissions that can’t be otherwise avoided. </p>
<p>Today, carbon offsets have become an important part of the Olympic brand. Both <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-olympics-green/china-says-beijing-olympics-basically-carbon-neutral-idUSPEK30941520080508">Beijing 2008</a> and <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/vancouver-olympic-organizers-sign-carbon-neutral-deal-to-offset-emissions-1.779939">Vancouver 2010</a> used offsets to reduce their emissions significantly. </p>
<p>But offsets aren’t always guaranteed. The London 2012 Summer Olympics <a href="https://www.environmentalleader.com/2011/09/london-olympics-drops-carbon-offset-pledge/">dropped its offset pledge</a> when it could not find any carbon offset projects in the United Kingdom. The Sochi organizers claimed to have achieved their <a href="https://www.triplepundit.com/2014/02/sochi-olympic-winter-games-broke-record-opening-ceremony/">“carbon neutral” target</a> for the 2014 Winter Games, but others have <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/s/524391/the-sochi-olympics-arent-as-green-as-advertised/">challenged that assertion</a>, questioning whether emissions associated with construction in preparation for the Games were included. </p>
<p>Pyeongchang 2018 is on track to achieve <a href="https://www.pyeongchang2018.com/en/sustainability/story/outcome">carbon neutrality</a> through the use of Certified Emission Reduction (CER) credits — an internationally recognized offset mechanism. By September 2017, the Pyeongchang organizing committee had secured offsets to cover about 84 per cent of the total emissions anticipated with hosting the Games, and there are plans to <a href="https://www.pyeongchang2018.com/en/news/pyeongchang-olympics-organizers-to-raise-funds-to-offset-carbon-emissions">crowdsource funds</a> to purchase the remaining credits required. </p>
<h2>Urban change</h2>
<p>The Olympics can leave behind important infrastructure legacies that promote urban sustainability over the long term. The Vancouver Games, for example, included a highway upgrade and the Canada Line — an extension of the city’s rapid transit system that connects downtown with the airport and Richmond, part of the metro Vancouver area. </p>
<p>Getting people out of their cars and onto the Canada Line reduces GHG emissions by as much as <a href="http://ctrf.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/CTRF2015NguyenSangOramPerlTransportationEnvironment.pdf">14 kt of greenhouse gases per year</a>, suggesting that the entire impact of the Vancouver 2010 Games could be offset in 20 years. </p>
<p>Yet the <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/vancouver-olympics-worth-the-7-billion-price-tag-study-says/article15036916/">Vancouver Games came with a $7 billion</a> price tag. And others point out that if the entire amount had been spent on improving the city’s public transit system, residents would have benefited from <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/olympics/footprint-of-vancouver-olympics-still-felt-but-impact-difficult-to-measure/article16386868/">much more than the Canada Line</a>. </p>
<p>Would funds have been available without the impetus of an international spectacle? It seems unlikely, but it’s difficult to know for certain.</p>
<h2>Olympics as a showcase</h2>
<p>At their best, the Olympics are a powerful movement that can effect change and act as a launchpad for new ideas. </p>
<p>Atlanta 1996 was one of the first Games to <a href="https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy00osti/23753.pdf">stage new and innovative technologies</a> in the areas of energy generation and efficiency. The infrastructure built for these Games included <a href="http://www.lapsedphysicist.org/2013/08/01/the-1996-summer-olympics/">large-scale solar panel installations and alternative energy vehicles</a>, demonstrating that these technologies were ready for deployment on a broader scale. </p>
<p>Keep in mind that this was more than 20 years ago and nearly a decade before Elon Musk founded Tesla. These installations helped usher in an era of solar deployment and alternative fuel vehicles. The late 1990s and early 2000s saw the development of <a href="http://nationalaglawcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/assets/crs/R40168.pdf">dozens of new alternative energy programs</a> in countries around the world. </p>
<p>Both <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/vancouvers-green-efforts/">Vancouver 2010</a> and <a href="https://www.olympic.org/news/london-2012-s-sustainability-legacy-lives-on">London 2012</a> featured new “green” buildings that used the latest <a href="http://greenbuildingaudiotours.com/neighbourhoods/vancouver_olympic_paralympic_village">LEED standard building techniques</a> and incorporated <a href="https://inhabitat.com/the-top-6-green-buildings-at-the-2012-london-olympics/">recovered materials</a> in their design. Rio 2016 similarly benefited from new technologies such as <a href="https://www.olympic.org/news/olympic-games-rio-2016-benefiting-from-ge-s-cutting-edge-technology">LED lighting</a>, which <a href="http://www.ase.org/blog/energy-efficiency-winning-gold-2016-rio-olympics">reduced costs and lowered greenhouse gas emissions</a>. </p>
<p>Yet the movement to showcase new technologies may be running out of steam. Pyeongchang 2018 has embraced wind electricity — enough to <a href="https://www.pyeongchang2018.com/en/sustainability/story/outcome">power the entire Games</a> — and has ensured that each of the six major facilities built for the events have green building certifications, incorporating cutting-edge materials, systems and design to minimize energy and water consumption. All of these approaches help reduce the footprint of the Games, but few can still be called innovative in 2018. </p>
<h2>Creating awareness</h2>
<p>Despite the best efforts of both the IOC and corporate sponsors, however, the impact of the Olympics is hard to miss. With an estimated footprint of 1,590 kt of greenhouse gases, Pyeongchang 2018 will come at a high cost. Couple this with low ticket sales and the <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/sports/olympics/pyeongchang-games-white-elephant-venues-1.4269813">potential of abandoned venues</a> in the future, and the Games begin to look hopelessly out of step with the concerns of a world working to achieve a low-carbon future. </p>
<p>Perhaps it’s time to call for a broader Olympics of sustainability: Ideas that can help us significantly move the needle towards greener living in an inclusive world. </p>
<p>Each Olympics could adopt an area — transport, construction, electricity, ecology — and showcase innovative ideas to inspire the world. </p>
<p>Some of the earlier attempts to green the Olympics have given us dramatic examples — the Richmond Oval, for instance, uses recycled materials to give us a soaring building that was designed <a href="https://www.archdaily.com/49705/winter-olympics-2010-vancouver-skating-richmond-olympic-oval-cannon-design">not only for the Games but for its future use</a>. </p>
<p>The Olympics needs more of this sort of forward-looking thinking.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/90817/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Warren Mabee receives funding from the Canada Research Chairs program, NSERC, and SSHRC.</span></em></p>The Olympic Games are an ideal venue to showcase new ideas to world. In a world where reducing carbon emissions is a priority, could the Olympics be doing more?Warren Mabee, Director, Queen's Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy, Queen's University, OntarioLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.