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China's Winter Games: New ski facilities between sustainability and gigantism - "it's amazing" 

2022-01-21T11:57:18.152Z


China's Winter Games: New ski facilities between sustainability and gigantism - "it's amazing"  Created: 01/21/2022, 12:21 p.m Sustainability and massive infrastructure for the Olympics: Terminus of the high-speed train specially built for the Games from downtown to the sports venues in Zhangjiakou © Imago/VCG Beijing wants to organize the green winter games if possible. Olympic sites from 2008


China's Winter Games: New ski facilities between sustainability and gigantism - "it's amazing" 

Created: 01/21/2022, 12:21 p.m

Sustainability and massive infrastructure for the Olympics: Terminus of the high-speed train specially built for the Games from downtown to the sports venues in Zhangjiakou © Imago/VCG

Beijing wants to organize the green winter games if possible.

Olympic sites from 2008 will be used again, and the sports facilities will be supplied with green electricity.

But the contradictions are great, the construction effort is gigantic.

Zhangjiakou/Munich – “The weather here is really good for making snow,” says Pierpaolo Salusso of the hilly area of ​​Zhangjiakou and Yanqing just outside Beijing, where the Winter Olympic Games* ski competitions are held. "It's generally dry and very cold." The Italian guides us through TechnoAlpin's local factory and shows the South Tyrolean manufacturer's latest snow cannons. China, as the world market leader for snowmaking systems, will ensure that there is sufficient and good snow on the ski slopes when the Winter Games take place from February 4th to 20th. 

Ironically, the Olympic snow spectacle takes place in one of the driest regions of the world.

Beijing* is the first city to host both Summer and Winter Games.

As in 2008, the Chinese Olympic organizers are not shying away from any effort or expense.

The games are controversial not only because of the spreading pandemic or human rights violations in China *, but also because of the criticism of a lack of sustainability or a certain gigantism in China.

The socialist state apparatus throws its full weight behind the staging. 

Dry winter in Beijing: Artificial snow needed for the Olympic sports venues

One problem is the high demand for water and electricity for snow production in Beijing, where there is often no precipitation for months in winter. It's cold enough, but Beijing's winters are traditionally very dry. However, ski resorts in the Alps, for example, are increasingly resorting to artificial snow that is easier to press for World Cups. "Artificial snow is not an emergency tool," says Yan Jiarong from the organizing committee. "It is actually an objective necessity to guarantee the quality of the snow for major international competitions." It also only requires a small percentage of local water consumption. Beijing also wants to keep recycling the water used for the artificial snow.

The electricity for the snow cannons and the Olympic sites flows through the substation in Gonghui, 75 kilometers from Zhangjiakou.

"For the first time in Olympic history, the venues will be supplied with 100 percent green electricity," says an electrician, presenting the modern facility.

Wind turbines and solar cells have been installed in the region, he says.

"The supply network can meet all the needs of the 26 sites." The official Xinhua News Agency recently cited the arena for snowboarding and freestyle skiing competitions as an example.

During the Olympics, it is expected to consume 100,000 kWh of electricity.

"The amount is equivalent to the consumption of 500 households of three in one month, but all electricity will come from clean and renewable energy," the agency wrote, citing one of the builders.

Above all, however, the heating systems in hotels, buildings and apartments need electricity in the cold winter, say those responsible.

If it is not enough, the national network can also be tapped, they concede.

The nationwide power supply is fed primarily from coal-fired power. 

Green Games planned: Olympia should be largely climate-neutral

Beijing wants to host its games “carbon dioxide neutral”. 85 percent of the Olympic vehicles should run on electricity or hydrogen. To compensate for unavoidable emissions, trees have been planted - even in Mali and Senegal. The organizers also built a dedicated high-speed road to the mountain sites around Zhangjiakou for athletes and spectators to travel quickly and easily. The journey would take at least three hours by car, but one is enough for the new train.

But how green are the games really going?

The games have become less and less sustainable since 1992, says Sven Daniel Wolfe, who, together with several other researchers, has examined all the Olympic Games since the Albertville Winter Games almost 30 years ago.

"Winter games usually cause more environmental damage than summer games," Wolfe said recently on Merkur.de*.

"It's just the nature of winter sports." You need slopes and trails with stadiums, toboggan runs and ski jumps in the mountains - which are not already available at every Olympic venue because it already hosts world cups, for example.

"The 2014 games in Sochi were enormously destructive to nature," said Wolfe.

"All the new infrastructure was built in protected natural forest." 

Winter Games in Beijing: Construction of gigantic infrastructure necessary

Beijing has also hardly hosted any Winter World Cups so far and had to rebuild most of the facilities, especially in Zhangjiakou - alpine and tobogganing/bobsleigh infrastructure in the Yanqing district beyond the Great Wall as well as stadiums for Nordic skiing sports in Zhangjiakou, which is already in the neighboring province of Hebei heard. After all, the disciplines of snowboarding and trick skiing take place in existing ski resorts near Zhangjiakou. 

The Olympic sites of the 2008 Summer Games will also be used a second time for the indoor competitions. The "water cube" for swimming competitions became the "ice cube" for curling. Ice hockey is played at Wukesong Basketball Arena from 2008. And the opening and closing ceremonies will take place, as in 2008, in the "Bird's Nest" Olympic Stadium, where Usain Bolt ran his first world record in the 100 meters in 2008. The fact that the national stadium has hardly been used for events in the 14 years since then, but eke out an existence primarily as an architectural attraction for tourists from all over China, goes unmentioned. 

The fact that the games should be "simple", as is officially claimed, is therefore in contradiction to the actual effort involved.

Beijing's Olympic organizers invested billions in the new hall called "Ice Ribbon", the large ski jump or the bobsleigh and toboggan run, which some criticized as "ostentatious".

And the ski slopes were built in the former Songshan National Nature Reserve, whose borders were redrawn in 2015, which outraged biologists. 

Beijing Winter Games: The pandemic also reduces the ecological footprint

The sports director of the German snowboarders, Andreas Scheid, thinks the effort is "gigantic".

"The snowmaking systems, lift systems and so on that have been built out of the ground here is amazing," said the 49-year-old.

"For us Europeans, that seems a bit strange today." After all, the builders in the stadium at the foot of the ski jump facility also created a soccer field.

This can - at least theoretically - be used from spring.

But another contribution comes rather involuntarily: Since no foreign spectators are taking part in the Olympics due to the corona pandemic, the cancellation of many flights reduces the CO2 footprint of the Winter Games.

(dpa/ck)

*Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.

Source: merkur

All sports articles on 2022-01-21

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