WI/AHC: Southern hemisphere Winter Olympics

Just googling "Ski resort (country X)" for fun.

"Ski resort South Africa":

http://www.news.com.au/travel/trave...s/news-story/4a4ba431c5a369f937ee26dc0e5bbe98

That is not very promising.

It's that bad? Guess you have to blame global warming. Looks like South Africa would have to host the games in Antarctica if they wanted a real chance. Or go the Dubai route and hold it all indoors. If Qatar can buy the World Cup and Dubai has a ski resort, then I could imagine some petrostate building the infrastructure and trying to argue for it (although no petrostate is in the Southern Hemisphere). Although if I were a wealthy oil sheikh and wanted to hold a Winter Olympics in my country (for who know what reason) and there was no Antarctic Treaty or anything stopping me from mining Antarctica, I'd probably find a way to expand my business to Antarctica to tap that rich source of fossil fuels (and probably precious metals and rare-earths) and with this new infrastructure, I could have a ski resort in Antarctica as part of the tourism industry I'd develop in my "Arab Antarctic Territory".

I would be interested in seeing what you could do with the Winter Olympics in Africa. Ifrane in Morocco is over a mile high in the Atlas and has a climate which produces a lot of snow in the winter. There's probably other spots in the Atlas in Morocco and Algeria which might be acceptable.

Not in the southern hempshere is a ski resort in India. India has won a total of 26 medals (not gold medals, just medals) in the Olympics, half in field hockey, and is the least likely major country to host the games, well least likely after Bangladesh and Pakistan:

http://skigulmarg.com/[/QUOTE]

Yeah, this is the best chance for a "tropical" nation to host the Winter Olympics. You might be able to do it in Nepal or Bhutan too even though neither nation has the infrastructure or economy like India does. Maybe even Burma, if Burma ended up developing quickly and not having a civil war since independence which includes Kachin State in the north where the best mountains are.

This is what came up for Brazil:

http://www.skipark.com.br/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ski_Mountain_Park

https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/São_Roque_(São_Paulo)

If the summer and winter games were always assigned to one country, they would definitely have had to pair with another country.

Reminds me of how there is a ski resort in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Gatlinburg is relatively cold in the winter, but despite being high in the Applachians, doesn't receive much snow since you're still in the South and the Appalachians haven't been a major mountain range for many millions of years. It's like how in the 2014 World Cup, there was the very minute risk that the venues in Porto Alegre and Curitiba could have snow or sleet (which would've been interesting to see). The highlands in the south of Brazil are more likely to have snow (and actually do every year), but it seems totally like Gatlinburg--it's all artificial and fake. You won't see a Brazilian city hosting the Winter Olympics (outside of Antarctica) for the same reason you won't see Atlanta or Knoxville host the Winter Olympics--it would be 99% fake. That almost sounds like a comedy, in an ATL where the Summer Olympics and Winter Olympics are assigned to the same country, some local politicians in Georgia and Tennessee trying to get the "1996 Winter Olympics" hosted in Gatlinburg or something--a great way to make fun of Southerners/Appalachia and far kinder than something like Deliverance.

Yeah, you aren't holding the Winter Olympics in Brazil outside of the Brazilian Antarctic Territory.
 
nd it turns out that New Zealand has tons of ski resorts. I understand the problem is the country building the facilities for the ice events.

A lot of Australians ski in NZ, the natural conditions are simply better in every way;
  • most mountains are further south
  • most mountains are higher
  • they receive better snow because of the oceanic nature of the weather (apparently Australian snow is wet and slushy and Kiwi snow is drier)
  • they receive more snow for longer, usually staying open until October (every ~10 years the Kiwi resorts have enough snow to stay open until Christmas)
However NZ isn't as wealthy as Australia and might struggle to build some of the stuff. This is reflected in the ratings applied to Kiwi resorts compared to Australian resorts, which naturally are shittier but have more people and more money for fancy lifts, terrain parks, snow-making gear and the like.
http://www.skiresort.info/ski-resorts/australia-and-oceania/sorted/slope-length/
 
It's that bad? Guess you have to blame global warming.

I don't know if its global warming per-se, rather (a bit like Australia) Southern Africa just doesn't have good natural conditions for snow. The mountains are pretty high, but are pretty far north (closer to the equator) and are pretty far inland where precipitation isn't too frequent and probably doesn't have that wet-bulb number to fall as snow.

This is Tiffendell, the best of Sth Africa/Lesotho's 3 resorts; 5 lifts and 2.4km of runs.
dfe79c6630df13c0635ec8c9c9dbe1e7

tiffendell1.jpg

66ff4d4ac6bf16f881bc347a236a327a.x400.jpeg
 

Errolwi

Monthly Donor
A lot of Australians ski in NZ, the natural conditions are simply better in every way;
  • most mountains are further south
  • most mountains are higher
  • they receive better snow because of the oceanic nature of the weather (apparently Australian snow is wet and slushy and Kiwi snow is drier)
  • they receive more snow for longer, usually staying open until October (every ~10 years the Kiwi resorts have enough snow to stay open until Christmas)
However NZ isn't as wealthy as Australia and might struggle to build some of the stuff. This is reflected in the ratings applied to Kiwi resorts compared to Australian resorts, which naturally are shittier but have more people and more money for fancy lifts, terrain parks, snow-making gear and the like.
http://www.skiresort.info/ski-resorts/australia-and-oceania/sorted/slope-length/

Note that Queenstown airport in NZ has recently been upgraded to allow for night operations - so that A320-loads of Australians can have a good weekend of ski-ing without having to knock off too early on Friday.
 
Looks like the ski resorts in the Southeast US in Tennessee and North Carolina are better than the ones posted for South Africa, haha.

Anyways, I think Chile makes the most sense for a host country.
 
Note that Queenstown airport in NZ has recently been upgraded to allow for night operations - so that A320-loads of Australians can have a good weekend of ski-ing without having to knock off too early on Friday.

That is interesting, I imagine more fly-in visitors will lead to improvements on the slopes themselves in coming years.

Given the North Island has some pretty fancy ski resorts that are in driving distance from Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington is Queenstown a mainly Aussie and other foreigner ski resort in comparison?
 

Errolwi

Monthly Donor
That is interesting, I imagine more fly-in visitors will lead to improvements on the slopes themselves in coming years.

Given the North Island has some pretty fancy ski resorts that are in driving distance from Auckland, Hamilton, Wellington is Queenstown a mainly Aussie and other foreigner ski resort in comparison?

I don't know, I'm an avgeek, not a skier! :) I'm actually flying to Queenstown at Easter to go to an airshow - a big one that fills up the region's accommodation (During ski-ing off-season).
I imagine Queenstown has a higher proportion of foreigners than the central NI fields, but I doubt they are a majority.
 
I'm actually flying to Queenstown at Easter to go to an airshow

Warbirds over Wanaka?

I am both, I was very interested to learn the criteria for building the Mt Hotham airport, apparently its in a weather shadow so doesn't get as much snow as the surrounding are, or as bad winds.
 
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