Vancouver Winter Olympics suffers from lack of snow

The host city for the 2010 Winter Olympics has enjoyed its warmest January on record, normally this wouldn’t be a problem however the Games opening ceremony is taking place on Friday and organisers are worried about the lack of snow at the venue for freestyle skiing and snowboarding events Cypress Mountain. It’s frustrating enough when you are on your skiing holiday and find unseasonal warm temperatures affecting your snow, even worse when there are thousands of competitors and visitors coming to the area and needing snow.

Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC) said it had been making and stockpiling snow near Cypress before the weather turned, and the task now was now to move it to the competition area. “There’s a lot of snow on the mountain, it’s just not in the place we want it. It’s not going to be easy, but we’ll get it done.” said VANOC’s chief executive John Furlong.

The resort of Whistler a popular ski holiday destination has not suffered from the same problem as Cypress Mountain, the venue for Nordic and alpine skiing has plenty of snow. The completion organisers have said that their main priority is to make sure that the completion areas have enough snow and are not worrying that the surrounding area is not covered with snow.

Picture courtesy of Matt Biddulph

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