How More Than 1.2 Million Cubic Tons of Artificial Snow Was Made for the Beijing Olympics

Snowmaking at the Olympics is hardly new, first occurring in 1980 when stubborn skies over Lake Placid led to staffers shoveling truckloads onto barren cross-country ski trails. And thanks in part to climate change, the practice has become increasingly necessary, with subtropical Sochi using about 80% man-made snow in 2014 and arid PyeongChang topping 90% four years later.

But the 2022 Games will take it one step further: None of the snow will be real. At both the alpine skiing venue in Yanqing, a mountainous Beijing suburb, and at the biathlon, cross-country, freestyle, nordic, ski jumping and snowboarding venues in Zhangjiakou, a ski destination 100 miles northwest of the host city, the temperatures regularly dip below freezing, but natural monthly snowfall is best measured in centimeters. “The Olympics cannot rely on that,” says Michael Mayr. “So they have to be sure the snow is there when they start.”

Here the onus falls to TechnoAlpin, an Italian snowmaking supplier for whom Mayr, 46, works as an area sales manager overseeing China. To hear him describe the vast amount of equipment necessary to stage these Olympics, TechnoAlpin might as well be outfitting an arctic army for battle. At the Yanqing venue alone, 170 fan-powered guns and 30 fanless stick lances work around the clock spraying water mist—sourced from a nearby reservoir and pressurized through multiple “pump stations”—that crystallizes into snow on its descent through the chilly air.

“Then we have the biathlon and nordic center [in Zhangjiakou], with 40 guns and 15 lances; the freestyle and snowboard venue [at the nearby Secret Garden resort] with 62 guns and 30 lances; and the big air venue [in downtown Beijing] with seven lances and no guns,” Mayr adds.

Most of this gear was shipped by ocean freighters that departed Italy throughout 2018 and ’19 to ensure enough time for travel and installation. But it wasn’t until mid-November that temperatures were low enough for the actual snowmaking to start. The blizzarding results? By the time the first skiers hit the slopes at the alpine center, according to its director of mountain operations, LV Hongyou, more than 1.2 million cubic tons will have been blasted out, spread by truck-like vehicles called snowcats, and then groomed for competition by a team of 20-plus international and domestic workers.

The snowmaking process for Beijing is projected to pull 49 million gallons of water from natural resources, a figure that environmentalists will cite as yet another example of the Olympics’ poor sustainability record. The IOC issued a lengthy statement to Sports Illustrated defending Beijing’s “water-conserving and recycling designs . . . to optimise water usage for snowmaking,” such as gathering melted snow in “retaining lakes.” It also took care to note that, while some 2,000 villagers living near the alpine center may use “a modest amount of [reservoir] water to irrigate fruit trees,” their efforts “will not be impacted.”

This will also be the first time in Olympic history that a single company supplies all of the snowmaking equipment, earning TechnoAlpin approximately €20 million, Mayr says. He plans to watch from home in Bolzano, Italy, and admire his company’s handiwork as the competitors carve down the mountains, spraying puffs of powder in their wake. 

It will just be a little less real.

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