Climate change compromises winter sports – 02/23/2024 – Sport

Pietro Casartelli began alpine skiing at the age of two with the dream of becoming a professional athlete and competing in the sport’s World Cup.

Now, at 18, the Italian says climate change is making his goals more difficult and much more expensive to achieve.

Warmer weather systems and a shorter season are threatening winter sports and testing the resolve of professionals and amateurs alike.

“If we continue to have seasons like this, we will have to stop,” said Josiane Sempe, owner of a ski rental shop in the resort of Hautacam, on the French-Spanish border in the Pyrenees. “I think this year is compromised.”

Casartelli signed up last year for a training camp in Chile, where the Southern Hemisphere winter provides snow in the Andes mountains, one of the few destinations available for athletes to train during Europe’s hottest months as record heat takes a toll. even the highest glaciers on the continent.

“We have to manage, even if we can’t always train at our best,” he told Reuters on his way to a competition in central Italy.

His trip to Chile was canceled as few of the participants could afford it. Simona Novara, spokeswoman for the Sestriere Ski Club, which Casartelli represents, said that a month’s training can cost up to 8,000 euros (R$42,700) per athlete.

Climate change is making alpine skiing an elite sport in Europe as winter training sites are dwindling in number, while high-altitude summer slopes have all but disappeared, Novara said.

Research by the International Biathlon Union (IBU) shows that around 60% of athletes in the sport, which combines skiing and shooting, have felt the impact of climate change, affecting training and competition conditions.

The IBU told Reuters that technical snowmaking capacity is a requirement for any high-level licensed biathlon venue to hold events, even in warmer temperatures, such as those at the 2024 world championships in Nove Mesto, Czech Republic.

In Chamonix, France, a historic comeback win by Switzerland’s Daniel Yule in the men’s World Cup slalom was aided by melting snow, climatologist Mark Maslin said.

Weather anomalies related to climate change are also becoming common and forcing the cancellation of events, with unpredictable weather posing an even greater challenge to winter sports than rising temperatures, said Susanna Sieff, director of sustainability at the International Federation of Winter Sports. Skiing (FIS).

“Storms of the century are now being seen every four or five years,” she said.

Record snowfall

The FIS had to cancel two ski races in Germany and France this month, while the Snowboard World Cup faced a massive storm in Mammoth, California, which brought record snowfall.

As the 2026 Winter Olympics in Cortina-Milan approach, concerns are growing that climate change will threaten the competition.

“By the middle of the century, there will be practically only 10-12 NOCs (National Olympic Committees) left that could host these snow events,” said the president of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Thomas Bach, in a post on the organization’s website in October.

The resort of Hautacam has around 20 slopes and in January was renamed “Hautacam Plage” on social media channels, showing sun loungers and barbecues rather than white slopes and hot chocolate.

“Will this become the only income for our resort in the winter? I don’t know, it’s a difficult question to answer,” said Marie-Florentine Hulin, the resort’s communications and marketing manager.

France’s public audit body warned this month that the economic model of the country’s ski resorts was running out of steam in the face of climate change and that most resorts were likely to be affected by 2050, with areas south of the Alps being the most achieved.

“The snow situation will probably get worse. So it’s better to adapt to this and find other activities in nature, like cycling or hiking,” said Stephane Remy, a guest at Hautacam.