Unsung
Alexis James
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Snow Whisperers: The Olympic Snowmakers Playing Mother Nature At Her Own Game
This is Unsung. Introducing the sports stars you don’t know, telling the stories you can’t miss. In episode three, featuring Winter Olympic snowmakers. The effect of climate change is an increasing challenge for winter sports, as temperatures rise and viable venues reduce. Sochi in 2014 was the first Winter Olympic Games held in a subtropical climate, and not a single flake of natural snow was expected in Beijing in 2022. So who do host cities turn to when Mother Nature has other ideas? In this episode, Alexis James meets professional snowmakers to find out about the science of snowmaking, the effects of climate change on the Winter Olympics, and how one Olympic host even resorted to Shamanism to ensure the Games could begin. You’ll hear from the people whose task it is to produce snow in all seasons. To whom ‘sun’s out, guns out’ means a completely different thing to the rest of us. They include Canadian meteorologist Chris Doyle, Olympic stalwarts SMI Snowmakers of Michigan, and the beguiling Mikko Martikainen of Finland. These amazing folk are the Snow Whisperers. And without them, many winter sports events simply couldn’t happen. If you enjoyed the podcast, then be sure to get a copy of the new book. Unsung: Not All Heroes Wear Kits is written by Alexis, published by Pitch Publishing, and is available from all your favourite book outlets. Along with more from the snow whisperers, you’ll be able to read never-before-told tales from Formula 1 mechanics, rugby medics, anti-doping officials, cycling moto pilots, and more from sport’s unheralded heroes. Head to unsungbook.com for more information. And don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast to be the first to know about new episodes. Quotes: “It took years off my life. All my hair fell out. I think that’s a pretty common experience for people involved with Games development. But I loved the pace, the excitement and the novelty of doing work we really knew could be used to make a difference.” “They wouldn’t wait for the weather to happen to make a decision. They would look to us and say, “what’s going to happen?” and make a decision beforehand. And that’s exactly how it worked. That was very rewarding because we could see we were making a real substantive contribution to the Games with our forecasts. Not with observed weather, which is the way decisions were made in the past.” “One of my biggest pet peeves is when people call it artificial snow. It's not artificial snow. I like to say it's machine-made snow. Natural snow sometimes takes hours or days to form as it’s going through the sky. We’re forming that snow crystal in somewhere between three and 15 seconds.” “I'll never forget the first time I got off a plane in Sochi,’ he said. ‘As I walked out of the military airport, I saw a palm tree. I thought this will be interesting. There was nothing built. There were barely roads up on that mountain. We did huge creek crossings in tracked Russian vehicles, it was a little iffy driving around these places trying to figure out where the slopes were going, and where the water sources would go.” “Climate change is real. It’s something that’s very heavily linked to snowmaking, which is becoming more popular with resorts just to ensure that they can open for their customers and provide a great experience. Instead of having snow machines that are 100 to 150 metres apart from each other, they’re going to 20 to 50 metres apart. You’re getting snow guns that are closer and closer. That has been a trend that we’ve been seeing in this industry.” Explore more Prepping Lake Placid for the 1980 Olympics https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuIZZmM4CaY First snowmaking machines at the 1980 Winter Olympics a...
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