A Different Kind of Snow at the Munich Sprints

Wed, Jan  3, 2007 - By Tour de Ski

The company named Snowpromotion is behind this secret. According to the CEO of the company Mr. Oliver Hasenfuhs, their technology is different. “The snow is made like in a big refrigerator, where cooling aggregators are shock frosting the water and by combining hot and cold air, we create the snow.” This represents a very different approach to the “conventional” artificial snow-making technologies where air temperature must be lower as -5C. “The result is an icy snow like we see in the mountains when the temperatures are high during the day and cold at night. The snow is at a temperature of -11C in the machine once produced and -4C to -7C when it reaches the ground.” At the moment as this article was written, the air temperature was +8C on the Munich Olympic Stadium, the snow at -1,8C and the humidity at 55%.

This is not the first time that this type of snow is used in Munich. It was used once during the last season when German championships were held in Munich as an ultimate test for this year Tour de Ski. And just recently the Snowpromotion company helped to successfully carry out the biathlon World Cup events in Oberhof, Germany.

According to several servicemen, the snow is really very fast and hard packed. The unique design of the Olympic Stadium keeps the temperature somewhat cooler in the “bowl” and therefore the snow conditions stay very good and stable despite warm temperatures. The major challenge for the athletes on this very fast course was to stay away from any balancing mistakes – these are not to be tolerated ...

Crash on the Munich course