When viewers tune in to the 2026 Winter Olympics, they will see pristine, white slopes, groomed tracks and athletes racing over snow-covered landscapes, thanks in part to a storm that blanketed the mountain venues of the Italian Alps with fresh powder just in time.

But at lower elevations, where cross-country and other events are held, athletes and organizers have been contending with rain; thin, sometimes slushy snow; and icy, machine-made surfaces.

“Most of our races are on machine-made snow,” 2026 U.S. Olympic team cross-country skier Rosie Brennan told us ahead of the Games. “TV production is great at making it look like we are in wintry, snowy places, but this year has been particularly bad.”

As scientists who study mountain snow, water resources and the human impact of warming winters, we see winter’s changes through data: rising temperatures, shrinking snowpack, shorter snow seasons.

Olympic athletes experience changing winter conditions personally, in ways the public and scientists rarely do. Lack of snowfall and more frequent rain affect when and where they can train, how they train and how dangerous the terrain can become.

We talked with Brennan and cross-country skiers Ben Ogden and Jack Young as they were preparing for the 2026 Winter Games. Their experiences reflect what many athletes describe: a sport increasingly defined not by the variability of natural winter but by the reliability of industrialized snowmaking.

Snowmaking technology makes it possible to create halfpipes for freestyle snowboarding and skiing competitions. It also allows for races when natural snow is scarce – the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing relied entirely on machine-made snow for many races.

However, machine-made snow creates a very different surface than natural snow, changing the race.

In clouds, each unique snowflake shape is determined by the temperature and humidity. Once formed, the iconic star shape begins to slowly erode as its crystals become rounded spheres. In this way, natural snow provides a variety of textures and depths: soft powder after a storm, firm or brittle snow in cold weather,........

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