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From The Asian Reporter, V32, #3 (March 7, 2022), page 7.
A winter wonderland without the winter
The Winter Olympics have been an Olympian effort, if I ever saw one.
I’m not talking about the athletes, although their dedication to their chosen sports is, as always, a marvel to watch. And I’m not talking about any particular country winning a truckload of gold medals, either.
No, I’m talking about Beijing, the site of this year’s WINTER Olympics.
I’m highlighting "WINTER" because this is the first Winter Olympics in which the competitions took place in a city with virtually no snow. Nearly every venue, from snowboarding and the luge to Alpine skiing had manmade snow. Olympian effort, indeed!
Watching some of the coverage on television, it became immediately apparent to me. Just beyond the ski runs, when looking carefully at the backdrop, viewers didn’t see the normal snow-lined fir trees. What one did see was low-lying brush and foliage, or as someone like me who lives in southern California might call, "my backyard."
From what I’ve read, Beijing receives, on average, one inch or more of annual snowfall compared to here. To be clear, "here" is San Diego, California — where the average amount of snowfall is zero.
That means the International Olympic Committee awarded the Winter Olympics to a city with relatively no snow. In other words, snow is no longer a requirement for a city to host the Winter Olympics.
I’m not trying to criticize China for hosting the Winter Olympics in a city with little snow. The Olympics brings a lot of prestige to a city, and if China is seen as successful, more power to them. And I don’t mean to make light of the fact that experts warn that future Winter Olympic games will undoubtedly face similar challenges due to climate change.
But this development does raise some intriguing possibilities. If one doesn’t need real snow for the Winter Olympics, then it can really be held anywhere. Why not host the Winter Olympics right here in San Diego? I mean, we only receive one inch less of annual snowfall than Beijing, right?
Here’s my 30-second elevator pitch for San Diego to host the Winter Olympics:
1) We can easily replace the giant slalom flags with palm trees. It’d be the perfect tropical winter wonderland!
2) We can save a lot of money on the curling venue by using a local gym and replacing the curling stones with Roomba vacuums — great competition and the end result is a clean gym. There’s nothing like killing two birds with one Roomba.
3) Since running snow machines nonstop can get expensive, we can cut back on some of the less popular winter events and introduce some new ones. Take the biathlon, for example. This is the sport in which athletes ski until they’re exhausted and then stop and shoot at targets with a rifle. Personally, unless your name is James Bond, I just don’t see this as a very practical skill. We can still call it the biathlon, but instead of skiing and shooting, let’s adapt it to something more relevant to San Diego. How about a timed event featuring rollerblading to the local taco stand and downing some fish tacos?
But there’s one thing I won’t sacrifice — we need to keep skiing as an event. The only question now is, snow … or water?
Humor writer Wayne Chan lives in the San Diego area; cartoonist Wayne Chan is based in the Bay Area.
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