Greenlandic Olympian: Climate Change Puts Winter Sports at Risk

Winter sports must take a clear stand on climate action, starting with the companies we choose as sponsors.

I am a biathlete. I grew up in Greenland skiing and shooting, and I will compete for Denmark in biathlon at the Milano Cortina Olympics. But the sport I love is becoming harder to recognize as a winter sport at all.

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At the Biathlon World Championships in Nove Mesto, Czechia in 2024, I skied on snow that was reduced to a narrow artificial strip, surrounded by grass and mud. Temperatures neared a balmy 10 degrees Celsius (50 degrees Fahrenheit) in the middle of February. In places, I found that the snow was so thin that asphalt broke through underneath my skis.

On what was supposed to be a training day on the snow, we were told we were not allowed to ski at all. The organizing committee was struggling to preserve what little snow was left; too much skiing would only speed up the melting. 

Winter sports are already being reshaped by climate change, and the institutions that govern them must decide how they will respond. One place to start is with sponsorship. 

Currently, YX, a Norwegian petrol station chain, sponsors the Norwegian Biathlon Federation. Vår Energi sponsors the Norwegian alpine national team. And one of the sponsors of the Milano Cortina Olympics is ENI, an Italian oil and gas company. 

Imagine the impact if the International Olympic Committee and national sport federations drew a clear line and banned fossil fuel sponsorships altogether. There is a painful irony in winter sports giving oil and gas companies a platform to build public credibility, while the very conditions required for our sport are quite literally melting away.

Sponsoring winter sports is a powerful way to gain public credibility. Millions of people watch the Olympic Games, and every logo shown on screen sends a message about what aligns with Olympic values, and what the Olympic movement chooses to endorse.

I feel extremely privileged to still be able to train and compete on snow, even if it increasingly happens in venues relying on artificial snow. In many places, even that is no longer possible. 

Last year, several biathlon races in Norway were cancelled due to warm temperatures and lack of snow. Across Europe, regions that once had snow-secure winters no longer do. The rapid change we are witnessing has a name we are all familiar with, even if we sometimes prefer not to think about it: climate change.

Biathlon is far from the only sport affected. Every outdoor winter sport that depends on snow faces the same threat. Sports we love watching at the Olympics—snowboarding, cross-country skiing, alpine skiing, ski jumping, Nordic combined—all share one fundamental truth: they require a future with snow in order to exist.

The impacts are already measurable. In the United States, the average ski season shortened by five to seven days between 2000 and 2019, and projections suggest that this loss could double or even triple by 2050 as global temperatures continue to rise. What used to be reliable winter conditions are becoming increasingly fragile.

The primary driver of this warming is the continued burning of fossil fuels. Today, renewable alternatives such as solar, wind, and hydropower are cost competitive or even cheaper than fossil fuels in many parts of the world. And yet, governments continue to support fossil fuel production and consumption. 

Climate-related disasters caused more than $100 billion in damages in the United States alone in 2025. And climate change is also melting our snow.

So how does this affect the Olympic Games? Research referenced by the International Olympic Committee shows that of 93 current Winter Olympic host locations, only 52 are likely to remain snow-secure by 2050. By the 2080s, that number could fall to just 30 if emissions remain at today’s levels. 

The very foundation of winter sport is becoming unstable.

One would expect an organization facing such existential threats to do everything in its power to protect the future of winter sport. And to be fair, the IOC has taken important steps on sustainability. Through Olympic Agenda 2020, sustainability has become one of the three core pillars of the Olympic Movement. 

The IOC has committed to integrating sustainability across all aspects of the Games, from bidding and venue construction to sourcing, mobility, and climate impact. Its sustainability strategy, aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals, focuses on using existing infrastructure, reducing waste, improving energy efficiency, cutting the Games’ carbon footprint, and supporting host cities in building lasting, sustainable legacies, with the stated ambition of making future Olympics carbon-neutral and a catalyst for sustainable development rather than a burden on host communities.

The direction is clear: sustainability is meant to be a core Olympic value. That is precisely why it feels deeply contradictory that the Olympic Games, several international federations, and many national teams continue to be sponsored by oil and fossil fuel companies.

During the 2024 World Championships in Nove Mesto, I had to borrow roller skis from a Czech teammate and double pole on the asphalt through a grey, snowless landscape. As I skied down a hill, I remember thinking how unsettling it felt to have to roller ski in the middle of winter and race on a track that was barely even there. 

It makes you question whether this sport is meant to exist under such conditions. If we have to artificially produce the entire arena we compete on, one starts to wonder why we are not simply running or roller skiing instead.

Sport has an enormous reach, and with that reach comes responsibility. Winter sports can continue to lend their platforms to companies whose core business is driving climate change, or they can lead by example and align their sponsorships with a future in which these sports still exist. 

If winter sports want a future with snow, they must start by choosing sponsors who are not melting it away.