Fig. 1: Lower section of the men's Olympic downhill slope in Rosa Khutor near Sochi.

In competitive sport, the gap between victory and defeat is often just a few hundredths of a second. One of the factors that make a winning difference is the best possible selection and preparation of the athlete's skis. Performing these tasks well depends on an exact understanding of the snow and weather conditions prevailing at the time of the competition.

The Swiss Olympic Association has engaged SLF scientists to forecast as precisely as possible the snow and weather conditions that the Swiss downhill and cross-country skiers will encounter on the various competition slopes and trails at the forthcoming 2014 Olympic Winter Games in Sochi. The researchers already did some initial groundwork during the World Cup event in February 2012, with a view to adjusting the SLF Alpine3D snow forecasting computer model.

Fig. 2: Taking a snow sample. It will be shipped home in a special box cooled by dry ice.		Fig. 3: An SLF researcher measuring the snow temperature.

Swiss Olympic also used the services of the SLF for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver. The weather forecasts produced there were not only accurate, but also generally better than the official outlooks. As a general rule, the figures forecast for the snow conditions were within +/- 1°C of the measured values. In particular thanks to the exact topographic data that were gathered in advance, the scientists were able accurately to map differences in place and time.

Fig. 4: Typical snow moisture and surface temperature forecasts for Cypress Mountain, Vancouver.

As in Vancouver, current meteorological and snow data collected by mobile weather stations will be fed into the computer models at the 2014 Games in Sochi in order to produce high-resolution forecasts of the race conditions for specific times and specific places. Two SLF employees will be travelling to the competition venue to install the mobile weather stations and produce the forecasts.

This exclusive information service ultimately serves the purpose of selecting and preparing the team's equipment in the most advantageous way, so that the medal haul of the Swiss athletes is as large as possible.