Turin: No Snow, No Problem
City Is Hosting Only Indoor Events, So Competition Not Affected
A pedestrian is framed by the Olympic rings at the Piazza Castello, site of the medal ceremonies in Turin, where there is no snow in the 15-day forecast.
(By Brian Snyder -- Reuters)
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Wednesday, February 8, 2006
TURIN, Italy, Feb. 7 -- The official mascots of the 2006 Winter Olympics -- a female snowflake named Neve and a male ice cube named Gliz -- are looking increasingly fanciful as Friday's Opening Ceremonies draw near without a trace of winter in sight. If the forecast holds, temperatures will be warmer at Turin's Stadio Olimpico than at FedEx Field when the Olympic torch is lit, signaling the start of the Winter Games.
Temperatures are predicted to climb into the high 40s in Turin on Wednesday and stay there through the weekend. According to the 15-day forecast, Neve and Gliz likely will be the closest thing to snow that Turin sees for the duration of the 20th Winter Olympiad, which concludes Feb. 26, with no days below freezing on tap. Good thing they're symbolic mascots rather than real ones, lest they be reduced to puddles before the Games begin.
With an elevation of 942 feet, Turin sits at the base of the Alps in northwestern Italy and isn't really accustomed to much snow. Even if the forecast holds true, the lack of snow won't affect the Olympic competition; Turin is hosting only the indoor events -- hockey, figure skating, short-track skating and speedskating.
All of the outdoor events will be held at ski resorts 50 miles or more to the north and west, where a heavy snowfall two weeks ago spared Olympic organizers the indignity of manufacturing snow for the glamour event -- the men's downhill race -- which will be contested Sunday at Sestriere.
There's also snow at Cesana Pariol (elevation 5,544 feet), about 55 miles from Turin in the Upper Susa Valley, which is the site of the sliding sports of luge, bobsled and skeleton. Temperatures were mild for Tuesday's training runs. If it gets warmer later in the week, the track will get slower and stickier as the ice softens. But the course is refrigerated underneath, so there's no worry that it can't be managed for competition.
"Everything looks really white; everything is covered," said first-time Olympian Leif Zimmermann, 22, a cross-country skier from Bozeman, Mont., who is staying in the athletes' housing complex in Sestriere. "There's a little bit of mud here and there right around the Olympic Village where there's on-going [construction] work. But I think overall it's going to be pretty wintry up here."
Turin is another matter. This industrial city fell on hard times after the factories that churned out Fiat automobiles shut down. It's undergoing a spirited revitalization, but in its transitional state -- at least away from its grand, baroque city center -- much of Turin resembles a construction site, marked by mud, concrete, cranes and bulldozers. And without a blanket of snow to obscure the rough patches, Olympic broadcasters face the daunting aesthetic task of turning this gritty urban landscape into picture-postcard images for TV viewers around the world.
"There's only one person who controls the weather, and that's the man upstairs," said Brian Walker, NBC's Olympic spokesman. "We work around whatever weather we're dealt with. There's snow in the mountains, and the weather in Torino has been terrific."
