Runner and mountain skier Kilian Jornet alerted this Wednesday that one Pyrenees-Barcelona candidacy for the Winter Olympics of the 2030 “Is not what the Pyrenees need” in the current context ofclimate emergency. “No study indicates that the amount of snow is sufficient and we cannot rely on artificial snow production. Infrastructures would be created that would be obsolete due to the lack of public and the meteorological conditions “, the Catalan mountaineer stated in a press conference organized in Barcelona by the Platform Stop JJOO, in which he appeared electronically.
Although he acknowledged that participating in games “is the dream of every athlete”, Jornet opposed the candidacy, considering that it perpetuates a unsustainable economic and tourist model on an environmental scale “, although he did not rule out participating in an Olympic event” if it is done in a place that makes sense “. “There are things more important than sport in society and the environment. We need a sustainable model for the Pyrenees, which allows people to live all year round. The Pyrenees don’t need games “, reflected the Catalan athlete. Jornet took part in an event convened by the Stop JJOO Platform to present a manifesto against the Pirineu-Barcelona 2030 candidacy.
The document has been signed by about forty people and organizations rooted in the Catalan Pyrenees, including Jornet himself, the mountaineer Araceli Segarra, the philosopher Xavier Antich or the scientist Anna perez. The platform, presented this August, aims to bring together the inhabitants of the Pyrenees who reject an Olympic project that, according to its spokesman, Bernat Lavaquiol, has been conceived “from Barcelona, back to the Pyrenees and with a lack of transparency by the Government ».
“Our goals are to achieve the withdrawal of the Olympic candidacy and that the planned investment is intended to meet the needs of the Pyrenees. Adapting the economy to climate change “, declared Lavaquiol, for whom the Olympic Games would reinforce” a socio-economic model of tourist monoculture that takes young people out of the Pyrenees “.
“This candidacy will fall by its own weight, like the previous seven that were presented in the area,” summed up the spokesman, who stressed its unfeasibility for environmental reasons: “We are in the midst of climate change, there will be no snow.” .
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