Joon Lee / Edge columnist
The 2022 Beijing Olympics, started on February 4. There were several incidents and controversies during this year’s Olympics like the artificial snow and cases where teams like the Chinese cheated.
The ski stadiums were used 100% artificial snow. There were a few cases when artificial snow was used in several previous Olympic Games. It was used at the 1980 Olympics in New York, the 2014 Olympics in Sochi, Russia, and the 2018 Olympics in PyeongChang, Korea. However, all stadiums were made by mixing real and artificial snow. The 2022 Beijing Olympics is the first time that a country used 100% artificial snow in a ski stadium.
Using artificial snow is a problem for the athletes’ safety. In the alpine skiing competition of this year’s Olympics, 31 out of 82 participants abstained from the race. This figure means that more than one in three people dropped out or was disqualified during the race due to a fall or injury. According to TIME news, Estonian Olympic biathlete Johanna Taliharm told the “Associated Press… that machine-made snow is icier and thus faster and more dangerous.”
The second reason artificial snow is a problem is because of the environment. China is a water-scarce country and it is said that it uses too much water to make as it would take 49 million gallons of water to cover a ski field with artificial snow, which is equivalent to 500 Olympic-size swimming pools.
In the speed skating competition, Canadian speed skater Alyson Charles was disqualified for absurd reasons during a match against China.
Chinese player Fan Kexin flicked a marker to slip Charles, but the outrageous thing is that Kexin did not disqualify, while Canadian athlete Brunelle was disqualified. This match was a game in which the referee’s mistake and the unfair decision stood out. In a similar case, Korean athletes were disqualified in the short track race between Korea and China. This angered many Koreans from the unfair decision of the judge. Chinese players who made the same mistake were not disqualified, while Korean players were disqualified. The Korean Sport and Olympic Committee (KSOC) said it would file an appeal with the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) “to formalize the injustice of this decision,”
These issues are more important because the Paralympics are upcoming on March 4. Paralympics’ athletes are classified by IPC (International Paralympic Committee). They classify the disabilities of competitors in order to provide a structure for competition. Fair competition thrives only if athletes have similar levels of disabilities, so athletes are grouped into classes based on how much their impairment affects fundamental activities in each specific sport and discipline. But the problems are started here, by pretending to have a more serious disability than they actually do, athletes could convince officials to group them with athletes of lesser abilities.
Not Only is the unfair classified being a problem, but the misuse of drugs is also a big problem in Paralympics too. Athletes take illicit drugs, or they drive their blood pressure up to drive heart rate and improve performance. Such behaviour has a big problem with fairness between players and can seriously affect the outcome of the match.
These problems should never happen again at the Olympics. If Olympic country introduces a new type of snow like 100 percent artificial snow to the stadium, it should have to survey the players about they agree with the new circumstance of the stadium. The IOC should implement more stringent doping tests for substance abuse every time the Olympics are held, and judges for each competition should be selected fairly through a carefully selected process. Also, IPC should classify players with firmer standards for fair games.
Problems are increasingly making people think about whether the Olympics and Paralympics are fair. Now, in some ways, it can be seen that the rights of athletes are not guaranteed to such an extent that the meaning of the Olympics is overshadowed. Olympics still needs to be fixed many things, such as biased decisions, the problem with the stadium, unfair classify, and the misuse of drugs.
Sources: https://time.com/6146039/artificial-snow-2022-olympics-beijing/
https://globalnews.ca/news/8603600/chinese-speedskater-kexin-fan-cheating-tripping-alyson-charles/
https://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/case-study/something-fishy-at-the-paralympics