Good snow protection, good event experience (focus on winter Olympic protection)

On February 7, the men's steeplechase final of the snowboarding event at the Beijing Winter Olympics was held at the Genting Ski Park in Zhangjiakou, Hebei Province.

Photo by Xinhua News Agency reporter Fei Maohua

88.70 points!

On February 7, the beijing winter olympic snowboarding men's slope steeplechase final was held in The Genting Ski Park in Zhangjiakou Division. Only to see the Chinese youngster Su Yiming move in the clouds and make the first 1800-degree action of the whole field. After a short wait, the referee scored high, and Su Yiming finally won the silver medal, creating the best result in the history of the project for the Chinese team.

During the Beijing Winter Olympics, Genting Ski Park hosted snow skills, aerial skills, slope obstacle courses, parallel giant slaloms, obstacle chases and other events, resulting in a total of 20 gold medals.

Ice and snow can be described as the basic elements of the Winter Olympic Games. Stable and reliable snow service is an important part of the smooth progress of ski competitions and the good experience of athletes. How to create a track that meets the standards of the Winter Olympics? How to ensure that there is enough snow for the event? How to practice the concept of green environmental protection? Genting Ski Park answers these questions.

Snow making

Judging from the holding of snow projects around the world, major events basically use artificial snowmaking

The mountains are stacked and snow-capped. At Genting Ski Park, after each race, the staff has to make pistes and repeatedly inspect each part of the track.

Genting Ski Park has 6 tracks. Snow traits are particularly important to maintain the stability of the track. So, where does the snow for a high-quality track come from?

Bernhard Rusi, chairman of the Alpine SkiIng Committee of the International Snow Federation, said at a media briefing on snowmaking at the Beijing Winter Olympics on February 5: If there is natural snow, we can make less snow. However, in terms of precise control of the quality of the slopes, we do not want to use a lot of natural snow. Russi believes that artificial snow is often used to create the best track and experience, which makes the snow on the track more compact and athletes can glide better on it.

At a press conference held by the Information Office of the State Council on January 13, Yan Jiarong, spokesman for the Beijing Winter Olympics Organizing Committee, said: "Judging from the holding of snow projects around the world, in order to ensure the quality of snow used in competitions, major international events basically use artificial snowmaking. ”

"The natural snow is soft and not suitable for racing. Artificial snow can create tracks that meet the technical specifications of competitive playing venues, providing athletes with fair playing conditions. In 2017, the beijing winter olympics snow protection key technology research team was formed, and Wang Feiteng, a researcher at the Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was one of them.

"It is not easy to create a track that meets the standards of the Winter Olympics, and there are strict requirements for parameters such as density, hardness and moisture content. Especially on the ice-like snow track, everything starts almost from scratch. Wang Feiteng said that ice-like snow is a form of snow quality, and its surface has a thin layer of hard ice shell, which can reduce the friction of the track surface for skis. At that time, the team members were generally unfamiliar with concepts such as ice-like snow and faced no small challenges.

"The process seems simple, just lay snow and water injection, but there are no specific parameters such as how thick the snow is laid and how long it takes to inject water." Since 2019, Wang Feiteng's team has conducted ice-like snow production experiments in Places such as Genting Ski Park, and has been drying for more than 10 hours in the test area of more than minus 20 degrees Celsius. "It's often the first cable car ride up the mountain every morning and the last one down the mountain."

Snow laying, water injection, compaction, measurement, analysis... After painstaking exploration and research, Wang Feiteng's team has developed a production technology suitable for different climatic conditions in China, with low operating costs, high snowmaking efficiency and more water saving.

Snowmaking

Achieve a win-win situation for snowmaking water and ecological environment protection

At 18:00 on February 3, in genting Ski Park, the first round of the Beijing Winter Olympics Freestyle Ski Snow Skills Women's Qualifying Tournament was underway. China's Li Nan began to glide after dressing, turning, jumping, vacating, flipping, and landing, and she successfully completed the race.

This freestyle ski snow skill track has a length of 250 meters and a gradient of about 28 degrees. There are many rolling snow bags in the grounds. After the snow skillers set off, they must go down the steep slopes around the snow bag and complete the jumping action.

More than 100 snow-making equipment started at the same time, and the snowflakes spread out like clouds... In mid-October 2021, the Genting Ski Park snowmaking team started a busy track snowmaking effort.

"There are certain conditions for starting the snowmaker, and snowmaking should be started under the most suitable conditions for temperature, humidity, wind, wind direction and other indicators, so as to save resources, reduce costs and ensure snow quality." Wang Shitong, deputy manager of mountain operation of Genting Ski Park, introduced.

Located between the lofty mountains and mountains, the temperature of Genting Ski Park in winter is as low as minus 20 degrees Celsius, and the severe cold weather brings a lot of challenges to snowmaking. In the race period, February and March are the time when the temperature rises, and there may be problems such as melting slopes and high winds, precipitation, sand and dust weather. All these put forward higher requirements for snow security work.

In the process of snowmaking, how to practice the concept of green?

Liu Haifeng, deputy mayor of Zhangjiakou City and deputy director of the Winter Olympic Office, introduced that in order to do a good job in ensuring the snow service of the Beijing Winter Olympics, zhangjiakou competition area has taken multiple measures around the three aspects of water conservation, water storage and water conservation, and started snowmaking preparations as soon as possible, and achieved a win-win situation of snowmaking water and ecological environment protection through measures such as collecting surface runoff and snow meltwater.

Enter Genting Ski Park and drive up the winding road to see an open-air reservoir. The snow field has successively built a reservoir and a snow meltwater collection pond, and installed pumping stations and diversion pipelines to send the collected surface water to the snow machine step by step along the mountain to provide snowmaking water protection for the snow track.

Focusing on water conservation, the two venues of Yunding and Guyangshu in Zhangjiakou Race Area adopt efficient water-saving intelligent snowmaking systems and snowmaking equipment, which can dynamically maintain the best snowmaking efficiency according to changes in the external environment. "The water saving rate has reached about 20%." Liu Haifeng said.

Plastic snow

Do a good job of snow pressing and shaping of the slopes, and provide a high-quality competition environment for athletes

The sky is clear and the track is white. On the morning of February 6, the beijing Winter Olympics snowboarding women's slope steeplechase final kicked off at Genting Ski Park, with athletes wearing helmets and snow goggles ready to go.

At the beginning of the track, a section of the "Great Wall of China" made of ice and snow shines in the sun.

As one of the most spectacular events at the Winter Olympics, the Slope Obstacle Course is located at the highest point of Genting Ski Park, at an altitude of 2,042 meters, 640 meters long, 30 to 40 meters wide, and a slope of 13 to 18 degrees.

"Doing a good job of snow pressing and shaping the slopes can provide a high-quality competition environment for athletes." Wang Shitong said that while highlighting the strong Chinese wind, the "Snow Great Wall" also has the practical function of wind protection.

At the aerial skill track, Wen Long, a member of the snow grooming team, is driving a snow grooming car with full concentration. After the snowmaker builds the snowdrift, he has to operate the mechanical equipment to shape the track to form an undulating track. From the top of the slope to the bottom of the slope, one trip after another, round trip several times.

Different races also have different requirements for snow shaping work on the track. Among them, the construction of tracks such as U-shaped venue skills is more difficult. "If the snow is too dry, like sand, it's hard to shape into a fixed shape; the snow is too hard to condense into ice and can't be shaped by snow press." Fortunately, genting Ski Park provides high-quality artificial snow with high density, high strength and easy shaping, which can fully meet the needs. Wen Long said, "We strictly follow the track standards, after many rounds of snow making and snow pressing, we repeatedly shape the track like a sculpture." ”

"Seeing the athletes successfully complete the race, all our hard work was worth it." When he said this, a smile bloomed on Wen Long's face.