The Nordic countries, the United States and Canada, as well as Japan in Asia, these countries with good natural conditions have always been the ice and snow powers in the Winter Olympic Games because of the strong mass base of winter sports.
However, despite the constraints of objective environmental factors, those countries from the tropics also have a passion for ice and snow sports and actively participate in the Winter Olympic Games.
Haiti and Saudi Arabia make their Winter Olympic debuts
The Beijing Winter Olympics "unlocked" two tropical countries – the island nation of Haiti in the Caribbean and Saudi Arabia in the Middle East desert – and they will all make their debuts in the history of the Winter Olympics.
Alpine skier Richardson Viano has the honor of being the first person in Haiti to compete in the men's giant slalom event for alpine skiing at the Beijing Winter Olympics.
Born in France, Viano, like winter athletes from other tropical countries, trains and competes in Europe all year round in order to participate in the dream of the Winter Olympics. The biggest problem for these athletes is funding, and raising the cost of training and competitions always gives Viano a headache, and if it weren't for a phone call from the president of the Haitian Ski Federation, he might have given up skiing.
In an interview with the IOC, Viano said: "I have no talent, there was no snow in my skin tone. I had to pay a lot to get there. Hopefully, I can set an example for my homeland, Haiti, and send a message of hope to the Haitian people. ”
Saudi Arabia, which is also competing for the Winter Olympics for the first time, is also competing in alpine skiing, and they will send two athletes – Salman Al-Huwesh and Faik Abdi.
This is not only the first time in saudi arabia's history to participate in the Winter Olympic Games, but also the first time in the history of the countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council to send athletes to participate in the Winter Olympic Games.
Prince Al-Fahd, vice president of the Saudi Arabian Olympic Committee, also made a positive evaluation of the preparations for the Beijing Winter Olympics a few days ago, wished the Beijing Winter Olympics a complete success, and expressed his expectation to strengthen experience exchanges and carry out more cooperation with China in hosting large-scale international events.
Five countries on the African continent competed
According to statistics, 15 African countries have participated in the Winter Olympic Games, and the first African country to appear in the Winter Olympic Games is South Africa. At the 1960 Winter Olympics in Valley, four figure skaters from South Africa impressed everyone.
Senegal competed for the first time at the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo, and their alpine skier Lamingheye became the first black athlete to compete in the Winter Olympics.
As the middle and long-distance running kingdom of the Summer Olympics athletics field, Kenya's first Winter Olympic player Boyette's scene at the 1998 Nagano Winter Olympics became a classic moment.
Although Kenya can be said to be invincible in the middle and long-distance running event, in the men's 10 km cross-country skiing competition, which also tests physical fitness, Boyette is the last to reach the finish line. To give Boyet a hug, champion Norwegian star Dalí postponed his appearance at the ceremony and waited 20 minutes for the Kenyan athlete at the finish line, a classic olympic symbol of equality and peace.
Boyette excitedly said at the time, "My coach told me about Dalí and I saw him on TV. I can't believe the best cross-country skiers in the world would come and congratulate me. ”
This year's Beijing Winter Olympics will feature six athletes from five African countries: Kenya, Nigeria, Madagascar, Morocco and Eritrea.
Countries in Southeast Asia, the Caribbean and South America that don't see snow and ice all year round are now regulars at the Winter Olympics.
The Philippines, for example, was the first tropical country to participate in the Winter Olympics (all in the tropics), and they sent two athletes to participate in alpine skiing at the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo.
The Pacific tropical island nation of Tonga also wrote a strong stroke on its country's Olympic calendar because of the shirtless opening ceremony standard-bearer at the 2018 Pyeongchang Winter Olympics and Pita Tauffatofa, who participated in two Summer Olympic Games and one Winter Olympic Games.
Somewhat regrettably, to date, none of the 40 countries that have been on the Winter Olympic gold medal table have been tropical or African.
Skiing is the most popular in small countries of the Winter Olympics
An interesting phenomenon is that almost all of these ice and snow sports "small countries" participating in the Winter Olympics started from skiing, and most of the debuts were alpine skiers and cross-country skiers.
Of the six African athletes at the Beijing Winter Olympics, 5 participate in alpine skiing and 1 participate in cross-country skiing. All three athletes from Haiti and Saudi Arabia are alpine skiers, and four athletes from the Winter Olympics in Thailand are also from the two sub-disciplines of alpine skiing and cross-country skiing.
Tonga's "shirtless brother" Pita, who participated in both the Summer and Winter Olympic Games, was able to realize his "double Olympic dream" by relying on the qualification obtained in cross-country skiing.
Why? This has a lot to do with the relatively low training and participation thresholds of these two events, as well as the relatively low technical requirements. Figure skating, short track speed skating and other ice sports, snow sports jumping, aerial skills and other such things, all have extremely high difficulty and technical requirements, and the danger is also higher. I didn't start practicing since I was a child, and I didn't have superhuman talent, and I couldn't reach the level of the participants in the Winter Olympics.
Skiing is much easier, a pair of poles plus a pair of snowboards, find a snow field to practice. Jamaican athlete Benjamin Alexander, who will compete in the Beijing Winter Olympics, only started alpine skiing six years ago and has now qualified for the Winter Olympics in the Giant Slalom event.
In addition, the cost is also a major factor, because individual projects in foreign countries are basically raised by athletes themselves, either at their own expense or sponsored.
Alexander, a Jamaican alpine skier, revealed that he has invested a lot of savings in skiing, has not had a full-time instructor all along, and can only train in the form of "buying lessons" in various parts of Europe like gym fitness.
Trinidad and Tobago will return to the Winter Olympics after a 20-year hiatus, and their IOC president Brian Lewis has said that while national Olympic committees can provide some support, in most cases athletes need to find their own funds, and most winter sports are expensive.
Find a ski slope to practice, the cost is much cheaper than high-quality ice rinks, especially in Europe and the United States, in the winter, the number of ski slopes is not bad, the conditions are not bad, the cost of hiring a coach is not too high.
Moreover, such as alpine skiing and cross-country skiing, the number of participants is relatively large, and the opportunity to get admission tickets to the Winter Olympics is also more, which is more cost-effective. Pita of Tonga, who competed in taekwondo at the 2016 Rio Olympics, taught himself cross-country skiing for less than two years, relying on the success of a qualifying tournament to go to PyeongChang in 2018.
There are exceptions, such as Jamaica and Nigeria, where the most inspirational examples come from the snowmobile event, although the results at the Winter Olympics are modest. It seems that the excellent speed genes in the athletic sprint event of the Summer Olympic Games have also been written into their Winter Olympic games.