WINTER GAMES
Team USA skier compares Pyeongchang snow to Utah’s ‘Greatest Snow on Earth’
Feb 8, 2018, 7:18 AM | Updated: Apr 17, 2023, 4:02 pm
PYEONGCHANG, South Korea — When you look around PyeongChang, it seems that one key element for the Winter Olympics is missing: the snow.
That’s not a good thing for South Korea’s largest ski resort.
Yongpyong Resort gets less than 100 inches of snow per year, so most of the snow is manmade.
This isn’t exactly the “Greatest Snow on Earth” like we’re used to in Utah, but it’s still really fun and can provide for a fast track for the alpine events.
For ski racers, it’s not so much about the amount of snow, as it is quality of snow.
Just ask U.S. Ski Team member and Utah native Jared Goldberg, who’s in his second Olympics.
“People in Utah can relate to a good powder day. It’s like that perfect amount of snow that, you know, you’re just really not hitting the bottom at all. It’s probably the closest you can get to a good powder day is having perfect, hero, grippy snow, where you can lean into it. It’s like water skiing on glass.”
And while this is nothing like a Utah powder day, it can be just as good if you have the need for speed.
They have the whole hill, and they can blow snow exactly how they want it and make it perfect, which is something we get in Beaver Creek, Colorado, for our only home U.S. World Cup downhill.
Yongpyong’s snow seems to be working out OK for Goldberg. In his first training run for the men’s downhill, he finished 11th out of more than 80 skiers.
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