Faster, Higher, Stronger | Tokyo 2020: Covid-19 overshadowing Olympic battle with climate change

Understandably the immediate concern for the future of the Olympics is that Tokyo 2020 will not start next month but next year, however, there may be bigger battles than the coronavirus ahead. A new report – “Playing Against the Clock: Global Sport, the Climate Emergency and the Case For Rapid Change” – published earlier this month has found that the Winter Olympics is set to be hit hard by climate change in the coming years. Published by Rapid Transition Alliance, and written by the academic and author David Goldblatt, the headline is that most previous host cities of the Winter Games will be unable to stage the event again by 2050. That should not necessarily be news, as the report points out. “The organisers of the 2010 Vancouver Winter Games wrote that 'the warmest weather on record challenged our ability to prepare fields of play for athletes in the venues at Cypress Mountains'. Sochi 2014 was warmer still.” For all those who deny climate change, the sight of a Winter Olympics held on water rather than snow is a pretty undeniable marker. As the Winter Olympic Games begin today, the month of February has warmed globally 1.82º F since the first Winter Olympics in 1924. Some Winter Olympic host cities in the past may not be able to be used again in the future, as the world warms. via @ClimateCentral pic.twitter.com/pLxskXzgJU — John Patrick ABC7 SWFL (@jpweather) February 8, 2018 That has long been the case. “Since their inception in 1924 the Games have invariably served as an opportunity to advertise winter sports facilities in fragile mountain ecosystems,” the report states. “As early as 1932, the proposed bobsleigh run for the Lake Placid Games, which required the cutting down of numerous trees, was successfully opposed by local residents. “Nonetheless, it took till the early 1990s, and more environmental controversy around the 1992 Albertville Games, for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to really take the issue seriously.” Climate change can have an impact on the actual sport, which was notable at Sochi in 2014. “Many competitors complained about the lack of snow, and the slow, wet, heavy snow that was available was difficult to manoeuvre on. “These poor course conditions meant that most medal winners came from amongst the first 10 athletes to start in each competition, who had the huge advantage of racing on drier snow that was quickly degraded for those that followed them. Interviewed #Olympics supremo Thomas Bach who says athletes complaining about moving 2020 Games marathons & race walks from Tokyo heat to Sapporo just wanted a competitive edge because they could cope better.#Tokyo2020 https://t.co/m7rfls7VZ3 pic.twitter.com/ISz2lgKnKF — Rob Harris (@RobHarris) November 18, 2019 “In alpine skiing, freestyle skiing and snowboarding events there was, compared to the 2010 Games, a five per cent drop in athletes actually finishing their event, and a nine per cent increase in competitor injuries,” the report says. In a world where playing surfaces have become more uniform, that is a sign of going backwards – as well as the indicator of much bigger worries. It will not be an issue for Sochi, as the report claims they are “unlikely to hold another Winter Games” and they are not the only one. IOC to move Tokyo 2020 Olympics marathon and race walking events 800km north to cooler Sapporo next summer to avoid “heat stress” and “to mitigate the effects of the temperatures which may occur” https://t.co/JwHpGRwh8G — Dan Roan (@danroan) October 16, 2019 The report cites research published by Canada’s University of Waterloo in 2018 that found “only eight of the 21 cities that have previously hosted the Winter Olympics will be cold enough to reliably host the Games by the end of this century”. Beijing, their research found, would be among several cities to be able to host into the 2080s without a reduction in emissions but it is significant that the 2022 Games will be the first to be competed 100 per cent on artificial snow. The future is bleaker for the Summer Games, according to a report in The Lancet in 2016. In “The last Summer Olympics? Climate change, health, and work outdoors” researchers found that by 2085 only Belfast, Dublin, Edinburgh and Glasgow in the northern hemisphere would meet IOC criteria to host a Summer Games. The construction of 2022 Winter Olympics venues is in high gear in Zhangjiakou, a northern Chinese city to co-host the Games pic.twitter.com/U6UrT4lnRs — China Xinhua News (@XHNews) June 15, 2020 Climate change has been a concern at the IOC since at least 2014 when they put sustainability among the three pillars of “Olympic Agenda 2020” and their website describes sustainability as “central to the Olympic movement’s vision of ‘building a better world through sport’”. As for the Games themselves the IOC states that at Tokyo 2020 the “aim” was for carbon neutrality, while Beijing 2022 will be powered by renewable energy, Paris 2024 is “on track to becoming carbon-neutral” and all Los Angeles 2028 venues already exist. Positive steps, but are they enough for the Summer Games, which have a carbon footprint close to Barbados? When it comes to the Winter Games, the IOC has demanded that from 2030 all host cities will have to be “climate positive”, putting that into place in March. Tokyo 2020 has announced the route for the Olympic marathon! Athletes will run through both modern and traditional districts of central Tokyo, passing many of the city’s iconic landmarks, including Kaminarimon, Zojoji and Ginza. @iaaforg https://t.co/T3o2kIrVjB pic.twitter.com/3zdVGQIKrJ — #Tokyo2020 (@Tokyo2020) May 31, 2018 Some have argued that climate change is already impacting on the Summer Games.“ Fundamentally, we should not be having the Tokyo Olympics in midsummer,” Makoto Yokohari, a professor of environmental studies at the University of Tokyo, told Quartz last summer. “Considering climate change, now it should be held in November.” That was evident when the marathon had to be moved from Tokyo to Sapporo because of heat, while several trial events were cancelled. There are genuine concerns over athlete safety. The worry is that even at Tokyo next summer, the only records broken will be for temperatures and the most important fans are the ones to cool down the athletes.

.css-1m2rp1p{color:#34b8b5;}Faster, Higher, Stronger | Tokyo 2020: Covid-19 overshadowing Olympic battle with climate change

Faster, Higher, Stronger | Tokyo 2020: Covid-19 overshadowing Olympic battle with climate change