Former ski world champion Markus Wasmeier
Photo: Tobias Hase / picture alliance / dpa
The former Olympic ski champion Markus Wasmeier reacted with great incomprehension to the award of the Asian Winter Games 2029 to Saudi Arabia.
'It's really frightening.
Apparently you haven't learned anything," said the 59-year-old to the sports information service: "It's really very bizarre what's going on there."
According to Wasmeier, it was »simply insane how one manages to consider such a topic to be sustainable«.
The Asian Olympic Committee had approved the controversial billion-euro project on Tuesday, and criticism of the award also came from politics.
"The award seems absurd," said Philipp Hartewig, sports policy spokesman for the FDP: "Holding it in Saudi Arabia is difficult to imagine, especially in these difficult times."
"In the same context, it is questionable how and whether the idea of sustainability can be fully lived out," Hartewig continues: "In Saudi Arabia, temperatures are around freezing, but snow is by no means guaranteed."
The Asian Games were last held in Sapporo, Japan, the Olympic city of 1972. Previous host countries included Japan, China, Kazakhstan and South Korea.
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