The inconvenient truth about why Olympic skiing may disappear someday

By ARNIE STAPLETON
AP Sports Writer

BEAVER CREEK, Colo. (AP) - Though it's snowing like crazy in Colorado, several members of the World Cup ski family are focused on global warming and its effect on their sport.

"When we look at the glaciers back in the '70s and now, we cannot say this is just a short-term phenomenon or a question of fickle weather," said Guenther Hujara, director of the men's World Cup. "The meteorologists have been telling us over 15 years of the risks coming up. Whoever believes we are going into deep weather problems is wrong _ because we are already in the middle of it."

Even on a day when the men's downhill World Cup training was canceled after a storm dumped 2 feet on snow on the course, triggering threats of an avalanche, Ted Ligety's thoughts were on global warming.

The Olympic combined gold medalist from Park City, Utah, is worried that greenhouse gas emissions will eventually eliminate skiing altogether and rob future generations of the thrills of winter sports.

Three World Cup events already have been canceled because of warm weather, and skiing's governing body has called the situation "critical."
"We already see this year the effects of warm weather. We're supposed to be going over to Europe next week and everything is canceled," Ligety said.

The season-opening races in Soelden, Austria, in October were wiped out because of heavy rain, and the women's events set for St. Moritz, Switzerland, on Dec. 9-10 were canceled because of lack of snow and warm temperatures. The men's races in Val d'Isere, France, on the same weekend were scrapped on Wednesday. The photo above is from an empty ski lift in the region of Sudelfeld in southern Bavaria on Wednesday, where the weather is too warm to do anything on skis.

Because of good snowfalls in North America, ski officials are working with organizers in Aspen and Beaver Creek to hold some of the abandoned events in Colorado.

Worrying about weather early in the season has always been part of the World Cup. Only, it used to be mid-October to November that had skiers sweating it out.

"But now we go November and into December," Hujara said. "The spring has hot temperatures, too, now of course. We're more concerned as a winter sport with the lack of snow. But there have been dramatic changes in summer weather, too."

Ligety, who is working with the World Wildlife Fund to create more awareness about the issue, wants people to contact their politicians to urge them to create policies to curb global warming.

For those who see the irony in Ligety talking about global warming on a day that he schlepped through 24 inches of snow to train in the technical events at Keystone -- here's a picture of a Beaver Creek ski patroler going over a bridge in the Colorado city on Tuesday after the snowfall cancelled the World Cup downhill training race -- he noted that races in his hometown were canceled a few years ago because of warm weather.

"This year we have snow, next year we may not," Ligety said. "At this point, I don't think there's many people who can deny there are effects to global warming."

Fellow Utah native Steven Nyman, an Olympic downhiller, said global warming is a hot topic among others on the U.S. Ski Team who are worried about its effect on skiing. He and combined coach John McBride have had several conversations about it after reading Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth."

"It's scary," Nyman said. "And we travel around to Chile (for offseason training) and we're deep in the Andes and we see these glaciers every year. We, even being there for three or four years, can watch them deplete. They're going away. And that's very scary because our love is on the snow."

Yet, Nyman said the top professional skiers are "probably the worst" offenders and don't really practice what they preach.

"We're staying in hotel rooms, changing the linens, we're flying here and there and we're driving everywhere. We are using amazing amounts of fuel and resources," Nyman said. "So, it's tough for us to talk as skiers traveling the world."

Ligety said he's doing what he can: He just bought a new fuel-efficient furnace and will travel in a hybrid vehicle instead of a gas guzzler whenever he can. "Little things like that can definitely help," he said.

Ligety said he believes the sport is in grave danger, especially in Europe, where the races are held at lower elevations, where even man-made snow isn't an option.