北京冬奥会的人造雪获运动员盛赞：迄今为止最好的
Beijing 2022 gets high marks for sustainable artificial snow

Beijing normally doesn't have much snow in winter, so artificial snow is being used at venues for the Beijing 2022 Olympic Winter Games, with the quality of the white snow drawing praise from many athletes, and even officials.

Artificial snow gives the courses a better and more stable quality.

"This is by far the best man-made snow I've ever skied on," American freestyle skier Ashley Caldwell said at a press conference.

After receiving feedback from many athletes through the training period and first days of competition, Kit McConnell, sports director of the International Olympic Committee, said the participants believe the artificial snow is outstanding.

"The focus is on doing this in a sustainable way, and also ensuring the athletes have an outstanding field of play on which to compete at the Olympic level," McConnell said.

Athletes have told Bernhard Russi, chairman of the International Ski Federation's alpine committee, that the man-made snow was easy to ski on.

Russi, also a former Swiss World Cup alpine ski racer and one of the course designers of the Yanqing National Alpine Skiing Center in Beijing, told China Central Television: "I think for the skiers it's just like paradise."

"In order to have a perfect course for alpine racing, you need man-made snow to get the quality right – compact snow for the power which these racers are able to put down on the snow," Russi said.

Although sometimes mixed with natural snow, artificial snow has mostly been used in competitions in the past five to 10 years, he added.

Snow-making machines were first deployed at the Lake Placid 1980 Winter Olympics in the United States. At Sochi 2014 in Russia, 80 percent of the snow was artificial, and the figure was 90 percent at Pyeongchang 2018 in South Korea.

Cooled water and compressed air are mixed in the snow cannon and shot out into water droplets at an angle. With the help of low temperatures, these droplets will become ice crystals.

There are totally nine types of snow made by snow machines, with different water content. The smaller type number is closer to powder snow. The larger number means the snow is wetter. Drier snow is used in the daytime, while No. 7 or No. 8 snow is used during the nighttime with over minus 20 degrees Celsius.

The use of different types of snow is factored in what's needed for each sport.

"In most cases, No. 5 snow is used," revealed Wei Qinghua, mountain operation manager of the Zhangjiakou Guyangshu venue cluster for Beijing 2022.

On November 7, during the preparation for the Games, Chongli District in Zhangjiakou saw its first snowfall this winter.

But the 20-centimeter-thick snow was cleaned up, because it would be more dangerous to use natural snow as it falls off more easily and brings safety risks.

The snow machines work round the clock, so the staff work in three shifts.

However, there are concerns regarding the environmental hazards of using so much water for snow-making.

The snow machines at Beijing 2022 have completely used renewable energy since the beginning of snow production.

"Water used for snow-making only comes from rainfall and surface runoff, and it can be recycled," Wei pointed out.

"For water from melted snow, we have a reservoir and two lakes which can store it so that it can then be used for agriculture, irrigation, tourism and landscaping."