Snowmaking to start at Shougang Big Air of Beijing 2022

BEIJING, Dec. 10 (Xinhua) -- The organizers of the Beijing 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games are preparing for the artificial snowmaking at the Shougang Big Air, which is expected to start in a week and last until about January 20 next year.

The Shougang Big Air located in the Beijing competition zone is set to host freestyle skiing and snowboard big air events.

Eleven snowmaking facilities have been in place to provide snow according to different requirements of quantity and quality at the starting area, access ramp, take-off and landing areas.

Artificial snow was first used at the 1980 Lake Placid Olympic Winter Games. Around 90 percent of snow used at the Alpine Skiing venue for the PyeongChang 2018 Winter Olympics was artificial, while man-made snow was also a feature of Vancouver 2010 and Sochi 2014.

In line with Beijing 2022's goal of hosting a sustainable and eco-friendly Games, a series of water-conserving techniques have been adopted in snowmaking, according to the organizer.

Liu Qi, a snowmaking manager, said that an intelligent snowmaking system is applied at the Shougang Big Air to help decide the timing for snowmaking based on the weather conditions and adjust the water proportion, which can conserve about 20 percent water for each cubic-meter snowmaking, while further improving the efficiency.