So what are the solutions? Here, another couple of Britons have some suggestions.

There isn't a starker way of illustrating that the sport is under threat. And Beijing, perhaps unsurprisingly, wouldn't feature on either list. Of the 19 venues, if the trajectory of current high carbon emissions continues, only 10 of them would still be reliable by the 2050s and only six by the 2080s. Returning to the Winter Olympics, the Slippery Slopes report quotes a projection of the suitability of previous hosts to stage the Games again in the future.

'The glaciers are getting smaller, the seasons seem all over the place and it is really worrying,' she says. McKenna's career as snow-sport athlete, coach and now team manager has spanned the last 30 years or so, but even in the far shorter time that 24-year-old Ormerod has been an active snowboarder, she too has already witnessed first-hand the effects of climate change. At one point the winter season might have been six months long. 'The resources are more pressured, so people tend to make hasty decisions or rush through things. 'If there's a lack of snow in general, athletes who want to train more often can't access training facilities,' McKenna told Sky Sports News. Lesley McKenna, a three-time Winter Olympian for Team GB and ambassador for Protect Our Winters UK, says that makes it harder for elite competitors to plan ahead if they can't find consistent high-level training conditions.įormer British snowboarder Lesley McKenna reflects on climate change ahead of this year's Winter Olympics. It is undeniable that the climate emergency and global warming is causing this severe lack of natural snow - shown by shorter seasons, lower snowfall levels and melting glaciers, which in turn cause rising sea levels.

But that isn't even the greatest issue at play here. In terms of what is happening globally, Canadian Philippe Marquis asserts in the report that 'conditions are definitely more dangerous than what we've seen before', while British freestyle skier Laura Donaldson is quoted as saying 'poor snow is less stable under the skis and it may not fully cover rocks and plants'.Īs for artificial snow, it can create a faster and harder surface, which means severe injuries are more likely when falls do happen. Britain's Ormerod has raised concerns about the safety of the snow

Gb how to set up 10 essential poses