A World Without The Winter Olympics
Chamonix 1924, Ski jump, Jacob Tullin Thams of Norway Olympic.org In 1924, at the French ski resort of Chamonix, the very first Winter Olympics got off to a precarious start. “A new thaw which set in on Monday has kept the skaters off the Olympic ice rink and even threatens to delay the start of the winter games,” wrote Sparrow Robertson in The New York Herald. “At Les Bossons, where the ski-jumping is scheduled to take place, the snow is so thin that it would be dangerous to permit any jumping until there has been another fall.” For the past few decades, Olympic organizers haven’t waited around. Instead, they’ve beaten back an unfavorable climate by making snow themselves. Snow guns pointed at Sochi’s ski jump have been running around the clock since December. Technicians plan to use 500 snow...