Winter Paralympics: Should event be moved amid climate change challenges?
Athletes wearing t-shirts, fans wearing sunscreen; Are these the Summer or Winter Paralympics?
If you listened to American Patrick Halgren describe conditions at the Milan-Cortina Games as “tropical” and “surf-like,” you’d think the former.
Until you’re told he’s a skier.
Since the 1992 Games, the Winter Paralympics have always been held in March and usually begin two weeks after the end of the Winter Olympics.
This means that conditions during the Games are often spring-like rather than winter-like, with temperatures in Beijing reaching 26°C four years ago.
Although such temperatures were not felt in Cortina, the weather was warm and until a major snowfall the night before the final day of competition on Sunday, snow was visible only on the groomed competition tracks.
During the competitions, which lasted several days, the scorching sun and some rain caused the snow on the tracks to soften and turn watery, which stuck to the athletes’ skis and snowboards.
The third official training session for the Para-alpine ski downhill events last weekend was canceled to preserve track conditions.
While many athletes praised the efforts of organizers to keep the tracks in as good a condition as possible, conditions during Friday’s men’s giant slalom events were far from ideal; British blind skier Fred Warburton described it as a “Slush Puppie tub”.
Guide James Hannan said: “The snow surface was changing gate after gate, so we never knew how the skis would react.
“It was almost like survival of the fittest.”
This was definitely proven in the sitting race held after the visually impaired and standing races: 18 athletes out of a field of 37 did not reach the bottom of the course.
“Organisers need to look at planning taking into account the obvious changes we are experiencing in climate,” Warburton said.
“Both the Olympics and Paralympics aspire to be the best showcases of skiing and allow athletes to perform at their best.
“We need to look at the calendar and move it forward in the future. It’s way beyond my pay grade, but it seems pretty reasonable to me.”
Warburton’s remarks echoed those of retired American Paralympic snowboarder Amy Purdy, who said in a video on TikTok this week: “I don’t believe the Paralympics should be held right now.”
His comments came after the snowboard cross course had to be adjusted after a number of crashes during training, partly due to its design but also due to hot conditions.
