2022.02.04冬奥会成功的秘诀：寒冷或坚硬的现金

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The secret to Winter Olympic success: cold or hard cash
Money helps countries with warmer climes excel

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Sofia goggia’s hometown of Bergamo, Italy, gets an average of just 7 centimetres of snow a year. The average temperature is 12°C. But in 2018, Ms Goggia won the gold medal for downhill skiing in the Winter Olympics. Ragnhild Mowinckel of Norway and Lindsey Vonn of America took silver and bronze. Both live in towns where it snows more than 100 centimetres a year.

In general, cold countries do better at the Winter Olympics. A culture of recreational skiing, skating and snowboarding lends itself to good slopes and training facilities. The more people who participate, the larger the talent pool. The Jamaican bobsleigh team, despite their fame, never won an Olympic medal: their four-man team’s best result was 14th in 1994.

Norway, with a population of just 5.5m, is a Winter Olympics superpower. It has amassed 368 medals to date, more than any other country. Its climate (more snowy days than any other country in Europe) helps. So, too, does its long tradition of skiing: one of the earliest depictions of the activity is a stone-age petroglyph from Rødøya, a Norwegian island. A survey in 2013 found that 70% of Norwegians own a pair of cross-country skis.


Warmer countries that buck the trend tend to spend big. An analysis by The Economist in 2021 found that a country’s share of world gdp was the best predictor of Summer Olympic glory. America does exceptionally well at the winter games, too. Italy, Spain and Australia command a higher share of global gdp than the vast majority of countries that compete in the Winter Olympics. They are also the only three countries with average temperatures above 13°C to have won medals.

Since Australia increased funding for its Olympic Committee by over 60% a year in the mid-1990s, nearly all its future gold medalists have set up training headquarters in Canada or Europe. The American Olympic Committee helps cover costs for coaching, training, health care and housing. Cash prizes for medallists may also make a difference. Italy pays $214,000 to athletes who bring home gold; Spain gives them $112,000. Other countries are more creative. In 2016 Germany gave Olympic medallists a lifetime supply of free beer. South Korean winners are exempt from national military service. All four countries have punched above their weight at past Winter Olympics.

But access to snow is still important and in some places it is becoming harder to find. Ms Goggia trains at Stelvio Pass in the Italian Alps, where temperatures are rising at double the rate in the rest of the northern hemisphere. Half of the glacier ice there is expected to melt by 2050. As this problem spreads, more and more training grounds are switching to artificial snow, which is icier and thus more dangerous for athletes. As the world warms, cash will become even more important to countries going for gold.




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冬奥会成功的秘诀：寒冷或坚硬的现金
金钱帮助气候温暖的国家取得优异成绩
2022年2月4日



索菲亚-戈吉亚的家乡意大利贝加莫每年平均只有7厘米的雪。平均温度为12℃。但在2018年，戈吉亚女士在冬奥会上赢得了下坡滑雪的金牌。挪威的Ragnhild Mowinckel和美国的Lindsey Vonn获得了银牌和铜牌。两人都居住在年降雪量超过100厘米的城镇。

一般来说，寒冷的国家在冬奥会上表现更好。休闲滑雪、滑冰和单板滑雪的文化适合于良好的斜坡和训练设施。参加的人越多，人才库就越大。牙买加雪橇队尽管名气很大，但从未赢得过奥运奖牌：他们的四人团队的最好成绩是1994年的第14名。

只有550万人口的挪威是一个冬奥会超级大国。迄今为止，它已经积累了368枚奖牌，比任何其他国家都多。它的气候（下雪天数比欧洲任何其他国家都多）起到了帮助作用。其悠久的滑雪传统也是如此：对这项活动最早的描述之一是来自挪威一个岛屿Rødøya的石器时代岩画。2013年的一项调查发现，70%的挪威人拥有一副越野滑雪板。


逆势而上的温暖国家往往花费巨大。经济学人》杂志2021年的一项分析发现，一个国家在世界GDP中的份额是预测夏季奥运会荣誉的最佳指标。美国在冬季奥运会上的表现也特别好。意大利、西班牙和澳大利亚的全球gdp份额高于绝大多数参加冬奥会的国家。它们也是仅有的三个平均气温高于13℃并获得奖牌的国家。

自从澳大利亚在20世纪90年代中期将其奥委会的经费每年增加60%以上以来，几乎所有未来的金牌选手都在加拿大或欧洲设立了训练总部。美国奥委会帮助支付教练、培训、医疗保健和住房的费用。对奖牌获得者的现金奖励也可能起到作用。意大利向带回金牌的运动员支付214,000美元；西班牙给他们112,000美元。其他国家则更有创意。2016年，德国给奥运奖牌获得者提供了终身免费啤酒。韩国的获奖者可以免服国家兵役。所有这四个国家在过去的冬奥会上都表现出了超强的实力。

但是，获得雪的机会仍然很重要，在一些地方，雪越来越难找。Goggia女士在意大利阿尔卑斯山的Stelvio Pass进行训练，那里的气温正以两倍于北半球其他地区的速度上升。预计到2050年，那里的一半冰川将融化。随着这个问题的蔓延，越来越多的训练场正在改用人工雪，人工雪更冰冷，因此对运动员来说更危险。随着世界变暖，现金对于要争夺金牌的国家来说将变得更加重要。