Davide Cerato will play a major role in skiing and snowboarding events at the upcoming Olympics, but he won't be competing.
The Italian snowmaking expert is responsible for perfecting several of the courses that will feature in the , and he takes his job seriously.
“It’s the most important race of their life,” Cerato said. “Our duty is to give them the best, to deliver the best courses where they can perform their best after training so hard.”
Cerato oversees operations at venues where new snowmaking systems were installed, including in Bormio for Alpine ski racing and ski mountaineering, and in Livigno for freestyle skiing and snowboarding events. He has been working with the International Ski and Snowboard Federation and the International Olympic Committee since the 2014 Sochi Olympics.
These days, manufactured snow — “technical snow” as Cerato calls it — is a way of life in ski racing, so much so that Olympic athletes don’t think twice about competing on it. Above all else, they want a course that will hold up over multiple training runs and the races themselves without becoming too mushy or rutted.
Mother Nature can’t always provide for that, and with affecting snowmaking has become essential.
New reservoirs and snow guns
The organizing committee estimates the Games will need roughly 946 million liters (250 million gallons) of water, the equivalent of nearly 380 Olympic swimming pools, for snowmaking. Cerato oversaw the work to carve out new high-elevation water reservoirs to store it.
At the Livigno Snow Park, they built a basin capable of holding about 200 million liters (53 million gallons) of water. It's now one of the biggest reservoirs on the Italian side of the Alps, Cerato said. They added more than 50 snow guns there to produce about 800 million liters (211 million gallons) of snow in roughly 300 hours.
In Bormio, Cerato said they constructed a lake at an elevation of 2,300 meters (2,515 yards) to hold 88 million liters (23 million gallons) of water. They also added 75 snow guns for Alpine skiing and ski mountaineering.
“We brought the Bormio slope to a new level,” he said, comparing it to a “Ferrari with new gears.”
Ensuring fair, safe courses
By making snow, organizers can control a slope's quality and hardness, preparing it according to FIS requirements and ensuring consistent conditions, Cerato said.
He said it's easier to work with technical snow because it's compact and is safer because it doesn't deteriorate as quickly, whereas natural snow requires more work. They can inject water deep into the snowpack, which will freeze and create a more stable race surface.
“We can deliver better, safer and fair courses,” he said. “That is the difference — a fair course from bib No. 1 to bib No. 50.”
Using snowmaking sensor technology
Cerato and his team are using state-of-the-art sensors to monitor the snow depth. If there’s a gap, snow guns go to work. If there’s too much, they are turned off.
“It automatically adjusts everything, each snow gun, so you can control with just one person sitting in the office, all the mountain,” Cerato said.
In Bormio, snow groomers are also equipped with GPS systems to help monitor the snow quality and levels, saving time, energy and water.
The snow groomer knows exactly where to push the snow and how much snow is needed. And at the same time, "you produce the minimum amount of snow that you need,” Cerato said. “This is a powerful tool.”
Preparing a slope for elite competition isn't the same as doing it for commercial use. For the latter, natural snow is precious, he said. Personally, he prefers skiing in powder.
“I was born on the mountain," he said. “I love snow.”
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