LAKE PLACID, N.Y. — In December, the Olympic Regional Development Authority announced Lake Placid’s Mount Van Hoevenberg had been chosen as the official “plan B” site for sliding events during the 2026 Winter Olympics in Italy if track updates aren’t completed in time. Now, as climate reports indicate Lake Placid may be one of the last remaining communities still able to host winter sports competitions, it’s possible more events could come back to New York within the next few decades. It wouldn’t be the first time an event was held outside of a host city. This past summer, surfing for the Paris Games was held 9,000 miles away in Tahiti. However, with a rise in global temperatures, some studies have indicated that only a handful of former host cities would still be viable to hold the games by 2050. Lake Placid is one of them. According to a 2018 study from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, only seven of the 21 winter host cities will still be reliably able to hold the games by 2050 under a low-emissions scenario. Under a high-emissions scenario, only two will be reliable: Lake Placid and Lillehammer. If global emissions remain on the current trajectory of the past two decades, researchers have said there may only be one reliable host city by the end of the century. If the Olympics were to return to Lake Placid, ORDA board chair Joe Martens said he would welcome it, but remain cautious about the effects of climate change. Recommended Prolonged winter storm to sweep across Vermont, New York “Climate change and its impact on winter sports is front and center for the Olympic Authority and for the Olympic movement, generally,” Martens said. In 2022, reports from the IOC showed that the Beijing Games relied on 90% […]