{"id":162439,"date":"2019-09-16T20:06:23","date_gmt":"2019-09-16T12:06:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.geek.com\/featured\/-1804074\/"},"modified":"2019-09-16T20:06:23","modified_gmt":"2019-09-16T12:06:23","slug":"olympic-organizers-test-fake-snow-for-summer-games","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/itteacheritfreelance.hk\/test\/wordpress\/2019\/09\/16\/olympic-organizers-test-fake-snow-for-summer-games\/","title":{"rendered":"Olympic Organizers Test Fake Snow For Summer Games"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Artificial snow garners mixed reactions ahead of 2020 Tokyo Olympics (via Toshifumi Kitamura\/AFP)<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Surviving the summer heat may be the most popular sport at next year’s Tokyo Olympics.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ten months ahead of the 2020 opening ceremony, organizers are experimenting with increasingly extreme methods of cooling crowds.<\/span><\/p>\n

More than 150 volunteers at a canoeing test event on Friday were blasted with fake snow, according to<\/a> the <\/span>Japan Times<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

But unlike the fluffy flakes that occasionally shower the capital city, onlookers were pelted with what the newspaper called “fairly coarse shards of shaved ice.”<\/span><\/p>\n

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Artificial snow falls onto journalists seated in a stand during a test event ahead of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games (via Toshifumi Kitamura\/AFP)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

“We are trying everything possible to ease heat risks,” 2020 Organizing Committee Senior Director Taka Okamura said in a statement.<\/span><\/p>\n

During a five-minute experiment, staff fed blocks of ice into a truck-mounted snow machine, dropping some 660 pounds of precipitation over a horde of human guinea pigs.<\/span><\/p>\n

“This is not meant to cool the entire atmosphere, but have spectators feel refreshed when the flakes of ice touch them,” Okamura said, admitting the system needs some tweaking.<\/span><\/p>\n

After all, ice doesn’t last long in 77-degree heat: Volunteers were quickly soaked through and the aluminum stands became slick with water. (One journalist even took a tumble.)<\/span><\/p>\n

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An artificial snow is designed to ease the expected summer heat during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics (via the Japan Times)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

If recent summers are anything to go by, 2020 will be a massive headache for participants and fans.<\/span><\/p>\n

In just one week at the end of July<\/a>, more than 18,000 people across Japan were hospitalized with suspected heat stroke\u2014about 60 of whom died as a result.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is no word on how much the committee expects to spend on temperature-mitigating measures\u2014including the proposed umbrella hat, which folks can attach to their heads to protect their faces from the sun.<\/span><\/p>\n

Officials have previously acknowledged that such efforts will inflate the event’s budget.<\/span><\/p>\n

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