Winter is artificial at the Beijing Olympics. At least in terms of snow. But how do athletes feel competing on it.
And the threat of climate change. Two Americans competing for medals in Beijing on that manmade snow are skiers Kevin Bolger
and Julia Kern. They had a different path to success. I have German roots. My whole family's from many originally. And that's
how I got into skiing. My grandparents would teach me. We would visit over Christmas. The next day. I was 5 to see family. We'd
all ski together as a family. And so I got skiing at since I could walk by the first race I ever did when I was in third
grade. And I remember winning one of those like a chocolate medal or something and being like this is pretty awesome. Let's
let's keep doing this. BOVESPA grew up in Wisconsin. While Curran gained her experience in Massachusetts and with her
grandparents in Germany both winter athletes have noticed the environment changing around them. It's been interesting to see
the transformation of places where we normally see snow year after year having less and less snow. Some years are good
winters but I remember as a kid I would go to Germany every Christmas to go ski with my family and my childhood memories are
always reliable. Snow sledding out the door skiing out the door. And now that's not the case anymore. There's often no reliable
snow over Christmas. So I don't always spend Christmas with my family there anymore.
And on the World Cups more and more venues have to have snow making as an option to even host the World Cup to guarantee good
snow conditions. Well you're from Wisconsin where there's lots of natural snow on. What's your experience of climate change
been like. That's something we've been kind of experiencing year after year after year. And even in Wisconsin I mean I'm not
living there full time anymore but I'm getting updates from my parents and never growing up as a kid. We always had snow on
Halloween almost like you almost had to pick a costume that you were you were warm because you had to go walk around. So but now
getting updates from them you know we're not getting snow until maybe Christmas which is crazy. And then for us I mean a lot of
the venues now that we go to even in Scandinavia where they record snow sometimes as early as like September. They're not
seeing snow now until almost after we're supposed to be racing there. And it's a question of whether we get to race a full five
K loop like and get you sometimes or if we're on these smaller two to two and a half cabling. We're just doing loops and loops
literature for our races. So it's it's a scary thing to be a part of.
Warmer winters have also affected the way that these two Olympians train. Now we're having to make adjustments in our
training to find snow to go get on snow so that when we roll around the season
we have that snow feeling under our feet. And that's been harder and harder to do. We need to roller ski a
lot more which is kind of like a roller blades but there are ski boots attached to him and we're having to do that. More and more
and more things are rapidly changing to manmade snow. Thankfully we can do city sprints like we did
the last five years in Dresden. They make snow somewhere and then truck it in. And I think that's really exciting. But also I
think that might be our future is that there will be a lot more men made options and we'll have to rely more heavily on having
snow reserves early season in certain venues or snow making indoors. And I actually got to experience the first time this
year skiing and it's in a tunnel in over half Germany where they have snow. You're around in a tunnel that's refrigerated up to
think that that's where racing and skiing and winter sports could eventually go. It's it's it's pretty unfortunate to even
have to have this discussion about that before they went to compete in Beijing. They expressed concern
about the future of winter sports amid speculation that in the future winter sports could be indoors or on manmade terrain. One
of the things I love about skiing is being outside in nature and spending that with others and enjoying the natural beauty of
winter. I hope that we can not have that future in 10 years or at all for our kids. I think one of the magical powers of having
seasons is being able to have snowy winters and warm summers and enjoy the different activities not have to artificially make
indoor facilities to do those sports. It's a very scary thing to think about because skiing in gliding on snow is something I'd
love to do. And that's why I love the sport. So to think about where it could be in five 10 15 20 years from
now. I think that there might not be a World Cup. There might not be a cross country circuit in Europe or anywhere in the
world or not. You know there might be this this shift to where we're roller skiing more and we're racing on roads and we're not
on snow because of what's going on in the world with climate change. And it's it's. It puts a pit in my stomach. And I'm even
getting warm now. And it's just it's really scary. And it's it scares me a lot. While competing for Olympic glory the fate of
their sport and snowy winters are something Kevin Bolger and Julia career are speaking up about.