Skiing north of Hell…

In the past couple of days, I made a distinct effort to go skiing to really see how the conditions were like at Park City Mountain. On Sunday, I skied the Park City side and had some good runs around the Thaynes chairlift, and on Monday decided to check out the Canyons side and was disappointed when I realized that Ninety-nine-90 had just been shut down for avalanche danger. 

Disappointed I returned home, skiing to some of the worst slush snow ever experienced. This was almost hell, that’s why I called this episode “Slightly north of hell!” Frankly, I feel terrible for our visitors that had to ski in such terrible conditions. I looked at the Ski Utah calendar and saw that Park City was still planning to stay open for skiing until April 20, just to beat its Deer Valley neighbor by one day (it plans to shut down on April 19).

The best I can guess is that skiing will be on virtual snow (at least in Park City, that spreads the artificial white stuff as thin as it can to save money!) I also noticed that Snowbasin, out of respect for its ski patrons, already closed on April 22. 

On my last chair ride that day, I chatted with an older Indian gentleman who, based on the current conditions, thought that he wasn’t seeing much more than 5 more years of skiing in Park City, adding that “When the earth will be doomed, there will be voices saying that it took only 2,000 years for the human specie to destroy the planet… What a shame!”

Seizing on intuition… (Part Three)

Keeping track of intuition through a log is perhaps the best tool there is to train our perceptual system. This is not about journaling our life. It’s about training, developing and using that perceptual faculty. So, each time we feel a strong intuition, write one sentence, like “I have a feeling X will happen.” Then add the bodily sensation, the emotional tone, the context and forget about it. 

Later, when the outcome becomes clear, return to the log and mark either correct or incorrect, partially correct or undetermined. This will build a feedback loop, just like the athletes among us refine our muscle memory! If we are persistent, we’ll begin to see patterns, like which sensations correlate with accuracy, which emotions distort intuition, which contexts sharpen or blur our perception. This is how intuition becomes a trainable skill rather than a lucky guess. Finally, before we close this discussion, let’s see how to tell "Intuition" from "Anxiety". This is perhaps the most critical skill. Real intuition and fear feel very similar, but they have different "flavors". The table below shows these differences:

Finally, while it’s fun to celebrate our successes, it will be even more helpful to study our misses When an intuition proves right, it’s tempting to just enjoy the confirmation, but the real growth comes from asking, first when it worked perfectly: What did it feel like? What was the first moment I sensed it? What was the “signal” beneath the noise? 

And when an intuition is wrong, let’s ask what emotion was masquerading as intuition? What bodily cue misled us? What did I want to be true? This is best way to train our intuition into a more precise indicator. This is both a complicated and elusive matter, so don’t be surprised if I find more effective or useful tools in the near future. 

In the meantime, we’ve got enough to get to work, so for those of you interested, let’s try to compare our respective progress, say in a year from now. Good luck !

Seizing on intuition… (Part Two)

Having some intuition is one thing, using it effectively is quite another. So, how can we make it useful to us? Specialists say that everything starts with a rich "Database", something that could also be called a form of input. In fact, intuition is only as good as the data it’s built on. Chess masters have "perfect" intuition about a board because they have seen thousands of patterns. Conversely, a novice has "little or bad" intuition because their database is empty. 

We must go beyond experiencing the moment and instead draw the teachings of every breathing moment in our lives. Let's not just work; let's analyze. If we are a manager, let's not be content with running a meeting, instead, always ask: "What were the three subtle cues I missed?" This feeds the subconscious better data. In addition, we must read case studies or "After Action Reviews." Our brain can always "claim" the experiences of others and add them to our intuitive library. In addition, before making a decision, picture the project failing 6 months from now. 

Let’s ask our gut: "What went wrong?" This forces our intuition to scan for subtle red flags we’ve been ignoring. The next stage is to work on the "Receiver" and make it more sensitive. Scientists call the ability, should I say this talent, to feel your own internal signals “Intreroception.” People with high interoceptive awareness (the ability to accurately feel their own heartbeat or "butterflies") consistently make better intuitive decisions. 

We can get better at this by practicing body scans, in which we practice a 2-minute "check-in" during low-stress moments. What does our chest feel like? Our stomach? our jaw? Then there’s the "Flash Decision" exercise in which when faced with a trivial choice (like picking a restaurant), we give ourselves exactly 3 seconds to choose. We observe the physical sensation of that "instant" choice. Does it feel "heavy" or "light"? Over time, we should learn to recognize the physical "signature" of a correct hunch. 

This leaves us with calibrating the "Feedback Loop", and within it, the biggest enemy of intuition is hindsight bias (the "I knew it all along" feeling that is often a lie). To improve, we must prove ourselves wrong by keeping an "Intuition Journal" in which we write down a hunch when we have it, including how it felt physically. For instance, "Met the new contractor today. 

My stomach felt tight, even though his resume is perfect. I’m going to hire him but watch the budget closely." From there, we need to review the outcomes by going back to that journal every 3 months. Was our stomach right, or was it just anxiety? This "tunes" our brain to distinguish between real intuition and emotional noise. Tomorrow, we’ll see how we can keep track of our various intuitions and measure them…

Seizing on intuition… (Part One)

Recently, I got a flagrant proof that a strong intuition I recently felt intensely, proved to be right. It was about a recommendation for a periodontist by my treating dentist. My negative feelings about that specialist were confirmed and made me realize that listening to our instincts is important, but can we really rely on them and how do we know for sure that they are valid premonitions or not?

Today, intuition is taken more seriously and is no longer considered "mystical." In cognitive science, it’s recognized as Rapid Pattern Recognition (RAP). Our brain is essentially a high-speed prediction machine that constantly compares our current situation to a massive internal library of past experiences, delivering a "verdict" before our conscious mind even finishes processing the data. 

This is all well and good, but how do we improve this "muscle?" Well, specialists say that we must focus on three areas: The Database (our experience), The Receiver (our body), and The Filter (our logic). Tomorrow we’ll explore each one of these elements in order to better harness the power of intuition, so please, stay tuned!

Icing on the Park City cake!

Last Sunday afternoon, I skied – I should say ice-skated, most of the Park City Mountain ski runs, with my daughter and we were lucky on many counts. Not to hit a tree, fall and slide without ever stopping as we glided, most of the time on sheer ice. 

Think of it as “on a wing and a prayer!” Something so bad I never experienced in 72 ski seasons, the world over from Australia to Zermatt! 

That should say a lot. Blue ice was visible in numerous spots and everywhere, including on bumps, everything was smooth, but super hard, the kind of material never letting the edges bite. 

Only on flat sections had the traffic abraded snow enough to turn it into some kind of semolina, making “skating” more pleasant. 

Since the combination of noise and vibrations was extremely unnerving, we did our very best to be “brief” and not linger on the harder spots, which gave anyone who watched us the very false impression that we were quite “at ease” on this forsaken terrain. 

Anecdotally, I’ve always thought and said that skiing on ice demanded brevity and I stand by that principle! In fact, we were just terrified and rushing to put an end to our descents. This said, we stuck on the mountain till closing time and tried everything that was available to find better spots, but they weren’t available. 

At the day’s conclusion, we felt good like the survivors we had become...

The 2026 Subaru Outback

Subaru has always been in my blood, at least from 1975 to 2022 when I made a fateful switch to an electric car. Subaru was about to come with its own, the Soltera, reluctantly developed by Toyota, but that I didn’t love enough to purchase. 

Yet, Subarus have always held a soft spot in my soul and I was just devastated when I caught a glance of its new 2026 Outback model. An ugly box to my very discerning and visually demanding eyes! There are also too many distracting details on that car that are plastered around to try to make it cool, fail badly at it.

A case of less is more… I felt a sense of betrayal and now found a justification for my fleeting loyalty to the Japanese brand. I may be old, but still can change! 

How should I have been hired? (Part Two)

As we discussed yesterday, I wondered if I should have asked what educational benefits (mentoring being a big one) I would get from my employers some 30, 40 or 50 years ago. Of course, the short answer had to be “Absolutely not!” 

It sure wasn’t unrealistic to want mentoring 30–50 years ago, but it was uncommon and largely infeasible because workplace culture and employer incentives were totally different then, and formal mentoring was “terra incognita”. Employers typically expected new hires to “pay their dues,” learn on the job at the “school of hard knocks”.

Formal mentoring as we know it, only began to be studied and institutionalized in the late 1970s–1980s. It’s only relatively recently that mentoring became a formal organizational practice. As far as I was concerned, the above research and any formal mentoring program began to appear after the time I hit the job market, while academic attention (like Kathy Kram’s work in 1988) helped legitimize mentoring as a workplace development tool. 

Kathy Kram

During my active life, workplace norms were top‑down and transactional. Employers expect employees to learn on the job and through their own mistakes; with structured professional development budgets and talent pipelines being far less common than they are today. Let’s say it was more like “sink or swim!” Job seekers also had far less bargaining power if any! 

Labor markets and hiring practices gave employers more leverage, so negotiating for non‑monetary benefits like mentorship was a rarity and most often than not would have seemed to be incredibly presumptuous. 

Today, things have evolved and are much different, so to console myself, I can only accept that I operated in a system that didn’t prioritize employee development; my choices were rational given the incentives. 

I'll have to reconsider this as an important emotional reframe. Another instance when I was clearly thinking far too ahead of my times!

How should I have been hired? (Part One)

As a kid, I never received much praised from my parents. This wasn’t part of their upbringing and their rather tough Alpine mountain culture. That kind of notice would have to come from my elementary school teacher who spotted my potential as a kid, give me an opportunity to shine and sent me on my way to success.

All this to underscore that when I talked about my favorite boss a few days ago, I should have mentioned one of the few regrets I got from my professional life and the fact that I sold myself, instead of having my prospective employers sold me about working with them and showing me (or not) how they would mentor me and participate to my personal growth while extracting huge benefits in the process. 

That’s right, I’m lamenting about the fact that I gave a lot, was compensated monetarily, but didn’t receive much in terms of professional education and I suspect that I’m far from being the only one in that situation. It’s true too that in most of my job searches I was so eager and desperate to get the position 

I wanted that I would have been afraid to have my employer laugh at me and, in the process, tell me to take a hike in being too demanding and difficult. I was simply not self-confident enough to dare ask for free mentoring. While this makes so much sense today, was this unrealistic to ask 50, 40 or 30 years ago? 

We’ll try to find an answer to that question tomorrow…

A twelve year anniversary!

Throughout our married life, my spouse and I have always stayed in one house less than 12 years, as we’ve moved 12 times together. 

Today, however, marks a family record. We have for the very first time lived at least one dozen years in our home and have no plans yet to move out, as we enjoy our place, its convenience and great location.

So, God willing, we might start setting a new record of living an unprecedented number of years in our beloved abode!

My favorite boss…

Often, my wife asks me: “Over the years and in your different jobs, who was your favorite boss?” I’d answer “Tough question! I don’t really know…” What it meant was that one or another wasn’t bad, but I didn’t learn much from him or her. 

As you know mentoring is an extremely essential benefit of being bossed around, and I must admit that none of my former bosses were good at that. In fact, they wouldn’t have even known how to start mentoring the people working for them. 

They seemed to have hired some kind of expertise and were to happy to extract some productivity out of them without having to spend time coaching or guiding them well towards reaching important company goals. 

This pretty reflected how I felt about the subject and my lackluster way of addressing my spouse’s question. Deep inside, I kind of knew that there was a more obvious response to it, but I just couldn’t see it and express it. That was until just a couple of days ago it hit me like a ton of bricks. I realized that through my entire career my best boss had simply been me. 

That may sound pretentious, but please, read on. In a huge way when I was managing my own ski industry distribution company in the 80s and 90s and to a lesser degree when I was a ski instructor in Avoriaz, France, I felt that having me as a boss was swell. In those days, I was in charge, I had full mastery of my destiny and was less disappointed in myself than I would be with all my other bosses on the many occasions I’d venture on the other side of the fence. 

On my own, I would define my goals, refine and modify them as needed, and evolve by espousing the circumstances and the terrain. When needed, I would also become my own coach, improve on that very special skill and refine it as well. I was fulfilled, happy and in control of my conditions and my fate. This wouldn’t come even close to my relationship of dependency from a boss who would not measure to my expectations. 

What a quantum difference!

Trump and the idea of “regime change”…

Since the beginning of the Iran war, Trump has been vacillating about the many reasons he joined forces with Bibi Netanyahu to inflict pain on the Iranian regime and its people. 

After giving us a bunch of reasons, our president and his administration have drifted towards the need for “regime change”, a very tall order when you think that the Mullahs are deeply planted in the governance of their country.

In actuality, Trump and his staff should have conducted a better job of preparing the terrain, but to their credit, they had no idea where they were getting into. This is typically what happens when one is, at the same time, lazy, impatient, lying and hypocritical. 

So here we go, we will be serving regime change that’s always a dangerous and uncertain bet. The only fair question left is where this change is going to happen first, in Iran or in the United States?

Blaming the symptom or the cause? (Part Three)

With today’s world population over 8.3 billion and expected to grow to 9.8 billion in 2050 and then peak from 10.3 to 11.2 billion between 2080 and 2100, its growth rate would have to steadily decline in order to reach these, thanks to global fertility rates dropping almost everywhere. Many countries are now worried about shrinking workforce, aging populations and economic contraction which would suggest that partially, the future environmental challenge will not totally be “too many people,” but partly how the existing population chooses to live or survive depending on its material “progress”. 

Well, AI will come to the rescue and replace a vanishing labor force. We also all know that the subject of population is fraught with delicate issues and has a dangerous history. This in fact is one of the biggest reasons why institutions like government and NGOs avoid openly breaching that taboo subject. Blaming overpopulation has historically been used to justify racist policies, forced sterilization, anti‑immigrant rhetoric that target specific regions or ethnic groups. 

Because of this, scientists and policymakers, with the notable exception of Trump and his supporters, tread very carefully. They focus on systems rather than people and claim that if the world suddenly had 2 billion fewer people but was still burning fossil fuels, deforesting like crazy, continuing over-fishing and still using industrial agriculture the planet would still be in trouble. Situation shows that beyond the well-meaning declarations and broad pledges, very little that’s been seriously done in that direction as we seem woefully incapable of meeting our short-term goals. 

Of course, if we humanity was serious about changing energy systems, land use, and consumption patterns — even with the current population — the planet might recover with an intensity proportional to the kind of sacrifices no one is willing to make. Without exceptions, sacrifices hurt and are hard to make, particularly in our comfortable, cocooned society. 

We need an accident or a crash in order to be forced to change or accept the seemingly unfair governmental restrictions, like we did during Covid-19. This explains why the focus is on the “symptoms” because they’re actually the mechanisms of environmental damage. 

With a “comfortable” developed world unwilling to give up any element of its comfort, the proposed remedial efforts are for naught and I still believe that we’ll need to crash into the wall of an inhabitable planet to realize that we might have irremediably damaged it.

Blaming the symptom or the cause? (Part Two)

Demographers are telling us that the global population may peak around 2050–2100, and growth rates are already falling in most regions. According to the United Nations, the world population is projected to reach 9.8 billion in 2050 and then rise toward a peak of 10.3 to 11.2 billion between 2080 and 2100, depending on fertility. 

This is supposed to mean that the future environmental trajectory will depend more on how people live than on how many people exist and that energy transitions, land management, and consumption patterns should matter more than raw population numbers, but will they? This would require getting away from fossil fuel dependence, industrial agriculture, deforestation, urban sprawl and wasteful production systems that are all the dominant causes of warming and biodiversity loss. 

This, in my view, remains a huge question mark. It remains obvious that population increase puts pressure on land use, water demand and habitat pressure. At this moment, it’s fairly easy to claim that one billion additional low‑consumption people have far less impact than a few million high‑consumption people, but who can guarantee that with time, a low poor people’s per‑capita footprint is not going to catch up as their economic situation improves? 

Society is extremely dynamic and with information circulating like never before the “bad example” of runaway consumption we display isn’t going to influence the poor in the good direction. Sure, if the population is a multiplier, it’s hard to put most of the burden on the symptoms. 

These are viewed as the “drivers”, our fossil‑fuel energy systems, our industrial agriculture, deforestation, mining and extraction, consumption patterns and waste systems. All are seen as the lower hanging fruits. Clearly, a growing population makes these drivers bigger, but if it’s not creating them, it’s a bit cavalier to speculate that it can’t amplify them. 

If we removed the drivers but kept the population the same, the impact would drop dramatically but it doesn’t as for instance the Trump administration is no longer motivated to fixing the drivers and the European Union has other priorities against a predatory Russia. We also know that the biggest environmental damage comes from a small fraction of people in the planet’s wealthiest nations. For example, the top 10% of global consumers produce nearly half of all emissions while the poorest 50% produce less than 10%. 

Countries with declining populations (Japan, Italy, Germany) have very high environmental footprints and conversely, countries with fast‑growing populations (many in Africa) have very low footprints. Still if given the opportunity through economic development these same countries would emulate their richer “models”! In the next blog, we’ll explore how a slowing world population might help, so please, stay with me!

Blaming the symptom or the cause? (Part One)

I have always wondered why planetary pollution, climate warming and biodiversity destruction are never blamed on overpopulation, but instead on elements resulting from specific aspects resulting from human population on earth. To me, it always felt as if we were treating the symptoms instead of the cause. Still, many disagree with me, and say I missed one key nuance in the way in environmental science, population is not the “root cause” in the simple way it appears, even though it’s an important part of the equation. 

They say the real root causes are more complex, as overpopulation may be part of the scientific discussion, but is rarely framed as the “main culprit” because research shows that the drivers of planetary damage are not sheer numbers of people, but the unequal and highly concentrated patterns of consumption, emissions, and land use. 

Did I mention that without a growing population, that of the economy and the religions would be hindered as well? 

The counterpoint to my beliefs is that the biggest environmental impacts come from consumption, not headcount as a small percentage of the global population produces the majority of emissions and waste and wealthy nations with stable or declining populations have the highest per‑capita environmental footprint. In contrast, poorer, fast‑growing populations contribute far less to climate change. 

This is why experts argue that consumption patterns, energy systems, and industrial practices are the primary drivers of climate warming and biodiversity loss—not population size alone. Sure, die-hard environmental scholars claim that population‑blame has often been tied to racist or xenophobic narratives, policies targeting specific regions or groups and attempts to shift responsibility away from high‑consumption societies. 

This sounds nice and good, but in my view is an obsession with fixing the seemingly easy and intractable (the symptoms) and neglecting the harder and main part (the cause). In a next blog, I’ll try to dig deeper into these arguments and honestly see if the position I’ve held for a long time holds any justification.

Doing great stuff with limited resources…

This thin and snow-less season will have taught me a very important lesson. It’s always possible to have a whole lot of fun with limited resources. Quantity has very little to do with quality in fact. It’s all in the way we direct the spotlight to see the good, the potential and improve on what seems bad at first sight. In short, a complete change in perspective! 

A few days ago, I was skiing on what’s always been for me, and still is today, ma favorite slope around Park City, called “Thaynes” and served by a rickety, 1975 Yan double fixed-grip chair that gets you 876 feet (267 m) higher up in just over 6 minutes. 

An ideal slope profile for a slalom course! 

The picture doesn’t do justice to the difficult, highly technical run it serves. I’ve written many times about that place and still love it in spite of its ski lift being very long in the teeth! 

Remember the Fall’s weather forecast? (Part Two)

In addition to the ups and downs of El Niño and La Niña, there has also been some atmospheric blocking and jet‑stream instability. During the fall of 2025, the jet stream did not set up in the classic 

La Niña pattern. Instead of steering Pacific storms into the Northwest and northern Rockies, it frequently split or stalled. 

This led to Storms missing the West entirely, with warm, dry ridges forming over the Great Basin and Rockies. In addition, the snow arrived later and in different regions than forecast had told us. 

According to the specialists, these blocking patterns are notoriously hard to predict more than 2–3 weeks ahead. The same experts also claim that local terrain effects amplify forecast errors. 

For instance, mountain regions like the Wasatch (here in Utah), Sierra (California), and Cascades (British Columbia, Oregon and Washington) depend on very specific storm trajectories. A shift of even 100 miles in the storm track can mean some heavy snow in one range but almost nothing in another. Once more, seasonal models cannot resolve these fine‑scale differences. 

Should I mention that the Farmer’s Almanac forecast uses non‑scientific methods and isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on? Unlike NOAA, the Farmer’s Almanac does not use physics‑based climate models. Its long‑range predictions rely on proprietary formulas, historical patterns and probably, fairy tales, which certainly don’t account for sudden ENSO shifts, jet‑stream behavior and anomalies, ocean‑atmosphere coupling and climate‑driven extremes. 

Seasonal snow forecasts will always carry large uncertainty, especially in the West where mountains create microclimates. NOAA’s probabilistic maps (like the snowfall probability tools I’m referring to) are more reliable than the Famer’s Almanac, but still cannot guarantee outcomes months ahead. Short‑range (1–2 week) forecasts remain far more accurate for snowfall than seasonal outlooks. 

The same specialists don’t mention climate change and the new trend for atmospheric rivers. I guess it’s only me who thinks that way. As a result, just don’t even consider long-term forecasts and make your own instead, or ask your dog if you have one!

Remember the Fall’s weather forecast? (Part One)

The fall‑2025 snow forecasts for the western United States promised us almost the same precipitations and temperatures as an average winter for Utah. In reality, it ended up being totally wrong and quite the opposite (no snow and milder temperatures) because the large‑scale climate signals that NOAA (US weather forecast) and the Farmer’s Almanac relied on, behaved totally differently than expected once the season actually arrived.

Even though the sources I’m mentioning were focused on general winter outlooks, they highlighted their key weakness as seasonal forecasts are probabilistic and heavily dependent on ENSO patterns (El Niño-Southern Oscillation). The ENSO cycles are natural, recurring, 2–7 year climate variations involving shifts in tropical Pacific Ocean temperatures and atmospheric circulation. 

These oscillations consist of three phases, El Niño (warm), La Niña (cool), and Neutral, all of which influence global weather, including precipitation, temperature, and hurricane activity, particularly during winter. As it looked into the winter 2025-26, NOAA, our national weather forecasting expected La Niña to continue, with a transition toward neutral conditions sometime in early 2026. 

But apparently the strength, timing, and regional impacts of La Niña vary widely from year to year. In 2025, the pattern weakened earlier and behaved irregularly, which disrupted the typical storm track that brings early‑season snow to the West. This means that even when the broad climate pattern is known, the exact distribution of snowfall was extremely difficult to predict months in advance. 

Our scientists are not talking much about climate change and the increased number of atmospheric rivers. This must be in my own head! There are however additional reasons that we’ll discuss tomorrow...

Sharp eye and sure footing…

When I heard we had received eight inches of powder overnight, I figured this new day was offering me an unexpected gift. Since I couldn’t get out in the morning, I set my sights on the afternoon, convinced that higher elevation would still hold the fluffiest snow. 

From the lift, everything looked promising—soft, untouched, inviting. But the moment my skis touched the surface, the illusion vanished. What had looked like powder had turned into heavy plaster, the kind that grabs your skis and makes every turn feel like a negotiation. I left that area and tried another, only to find the same stubborn, uncooperative snow. 

Still, something in me switched from disappointment to curiosity. Instead of fighting the conditions, I treated them like a game. And little by little, I found ways to make it fun. The challenge itself became the reward. That’s when it struck me: all these years on snow have built a catalog of sensations that live in the soles of my feet—tiny variations in pressure, edge angle, and balance that I don’t consciously think about but rely on constantly. 

My eyes, too, have been trained by thousands of runs to read terrain instantly, to spot both opportunity and danger long before I reach them. In difficult conditions, those two systems—vision and foot‑feel—start talking to each other. My feet recognize echoes of past situations and quietly offer solutions. My eyes scan ahead and choose the line that gives those solutions the best chance to work. When they sync up, even terrible snow becomes a kind of game. 

The frustration dissolves, replaced by a sense of competence, presence, and flow. And that’s when I’m reminded, once again, that there’s really no such thing as a bad moment on skis. There are only different moments—each one adding another layer to the skill, memory, and joy that keep me coming back.

Meet the “Demo Team!”

As spring get closer we all have projects to start, either around our homes or on other properties we have some interest in. But with any remodeling or improvements, there is always a hefty amount of “demo” or demolition, that’s often necessary.

Still, no one does a better job than the “Bibi”- Donald pair for breaking things. They bring their heavy equipment and hit everything in sight without worrying about any damage. From Gaza to Tehran you see both destroying any infrastructure and telling us they’ll replace ruins and rubles with a wonderful resort... 

Sure, Bibi does that to avoid losing his political immunity and end up going to jail while Donald does it to distract us from Epstein, his sinking ratings and our affordability problems. Out of personal concern and for my own safery, I wonder what this destructive duo will demolish next?

Olympic introspection… (Part Five)

It’s often strange how highly important decisions are made. France secured the 2030 Winter Olympics because it offered the IOC a low‑risk, politically supported, geographically coherent, and legacy‑focused plan across the French Alps. In truth, after Sweden’s withdrawal, it became on November 29, 2023, the IOC’s sole (it then said “preferred”) candidate. 

With a blatant shortage of candidates, the so-called IOC’s “new system” emphasized stability, feasibility, and political guarantees rather than competitive bidding. The French delegation was led by President Emmanuel Macron, who personally expressed France’s full commitment to delivering the Games and the IOC said it placed enormous weight on government guarantees, especially for the Winter Games that require complex infrastructure and climate‑resilient planning. 

France met these conditions within the IOC’s timeline. What made the IOC accept a Games spread across the entire French Alps was a concern to use existing venues and established winter‑sport regions to fit its new strategy, in spite of its highly publicized “sustainability” focus versus huge transportation needs. The IOC also liked the appealing narrative that the French Alps combined historic Olympic sites with modern facilities, creating a blend of heritage and future‑oriented planning. 

This was seen as reducing risk and enhancing the Games’ narrative appeal. France also had to offer explicit financial commitments to the IOC.in order to address its concerns about cost overruns and political uncertainty. 

Unlike other recent bids that stretched across multiple countries or distant cities, the French Alps were seen as forming a continuous, well‑connected winter‑sports corridor (more than 160 miles as the crow flies). Finally, France’s recent success with the Paris 2024 Summer Olympics clinched the deal. Should I repeat that the IOC had no other option?

Edgar Grospiron was chosen to lead the 2030 Winter Olympics Organizing Committee through a formal vote of the General Assembly of the newly created committee. on February 18, 2025. I’ve seen him when he was a toddler, as his parents moved to work for Vuarnet Sports, at Avoriaz, in the early 70s. 

The General Assembly justified its choice based on Grospiron’s deep Olympic and sports‑movement experience, which included, among others, Olympic champion in mogul skiing at Albertville 1992, Leader of the Annecy 2018 Winter Olympics bid and longstanding involvement in French winter‑sports governance. These credentials were explicitly cited as reasons for his appointment. 

Grospiron, who will turn 57 in March, is remarkably extroverted and might have lacked the diplomatic skills and managerial experience need for the job. That happened to me too. Still, the position is highly visible and well remunerated (probably around $25,000 to $35,000 a month), something kept secret in the French tradition of keeping a tight lid on transparency. 

It’s worth noting that Giovanni Malagò who ran the Milan 26 took no salary. More recently, the committee has experienced significant internal tensions, including the resignation of the CEO, COO, communications director, and head of the remuneration committee. These events do not affect how he was selected but help explain why his leadership has been under scrutiny. 

Time will tell us how this complex project develops in the less than four years that are left prior to the games…

Olympic introspection… (Part Four)

Without worrying about transparency, Alberville 1992, Lillehammer 1994, Nagano 1998 and even Salt Lake City 2002, never provided a detailed final budget, or profit and loss statement, or even cost‑overrun figures.

However, it’s pretty obvious that the Games required major infrastructure investments, with extensive venue constructions, major regional transport upgrades and development across multiple venues. Each likes to infer that its Games broke even, but I wouldn’t bet on it.

Torino 2006 and Sochi 2014 are totally different stories though, with Torino ending with a financial outcome clearly negative, and the Games leaving a long‑term burden on the city and its region. The clearest source states that the 2006 Turin Games “left a legacy of large debts and unused infrastructure”, describing the event as a cautionary tale for future hosts. The Games did not break even, the city and region were left holding a significant debt, The financial legacy was negative, period. 

Sochi was clearly engineered by Putin and with his oligarch friends and his subjects’ money he treated himself to the most expensive Olympics in history, and the financial outcome is unusually well‑documented. The available sources paint a consistent picture of massive cost overruns, extremely high total spending, and a long‑term economic burden, with only limited offsetting benefits. Independent analyses show that the total cost reached $55 billion, up from an original bid estimate of $12 billion. 

This represents a 4.5 times cost overrun, one of the largest ever recorded for any Olympic Games. Of that, $16 billion were sports‑related costs (venues, operations) while the remaining $39 billion went to non‑sports infrastructure such as roads, rail, power, and hotels. It’s evidently breaking records for cost overrun at $51 billion!

The jury is still out on the Milano–Cortina 2026 Games that just happened, but budget, overruns, and likely financial outcome are already well‑documented. 

The initial operating budget began at $1.77 billion and officially was revised to $2 billion. But its initial infrastructure budget at $4.5 billion might end up at $4.75 billion. 

Broader estimates place the overall cost at $6 to $7 billion when combining operations, venues, and legacy projects. Some analyses include all related works (roads, transport, regional upgrades) and reach $9.15 billion total, of which only $1.9 billion is strictly “Games-related”. 

Let’s wait and see a little to see at which level the final cost settles in. Some reports suggest that thee Organizing Committee Milano Cortina 2026 is on track to show a surplus between $59 million to $95 million. 

This would largely be due to record-breaking domestic sponsorship revenue, which surpassed $825 million. We’ll see! Tomorrow, we’ll plunge into the ambitious and highly complicated next Olympics, Alps 2030!

Olympic introspection… (Part Three)

If we examine the most recent Winter Olympics from 1992 to this day, we also see different tales and from best to worst, we may be surprised, but won’t be shocked. Across the board, full transparency is not the order of the day and may reflect the IOC’s secretive culture. 

Among the well-behaved and more responsible Olympic winter sites there is a remarkable trio. It’s Vancouver 2010, PyeongChang (South Korea) 2018 and Beijing 2022 that, just like the cream, rise to the top in behavior and performance.

PyeongChang is arguably the best and one of the very few Games that ended with a confirmed financial surplus, backed by crystal-clear numbers. The picture becomes even more interesting when we look at operational budget, infrastructure spending, and economic results side by side. Operationally, it yielded a confirmed $55 million surplus based on revenue of $2.245 billion and expenditure of $2.190 billion. 

If we can believe the Chinese, Beijing 2022 follows with one of the clearest and most unusual financial profiles of any recent Winter Olympics. Another surplus posted by the organizing committee, while the overall cost of the Games was far higher than originally planned. The available sources give us solid numbers on both sides, with a $52 million surplus on $2.3 billion revenue. 

The IOC also stated it would contribute US $10.4 million of its share of the surplus to the Chinese Olympic Committee. Vancouver too, ended up with a clean, documented financial outcome and a very clear picture. The Games are widely regarded as well‑managed financially, though the story differs depending on whether we look at operational costs or infrastructure spending. 

While the operating budget broke even, the infrastructure budget—which included venues, roads, transit, and city improvements—was a separate matter. Two major figures stand out, $603 million for venue development, delivered on budget, but $554.3 million were spent by the City of Vancouver alone for capital infrastructure and Games‑related operations. 

But like most Olympics, the public sector absorbed the infrastructure costs, which are not counted in the break‑even result. Tomorrow we’ll take a look at the other Games, including a preview of Milan 2026.

Olympic introspection… (Part Two)

Today, we’ll explore how financially successful the Olympics (mostly summer) were. We’ll begin with the single Olympic Games that really made money, Los Angeles in 1984, a standout example. These were operated without public funds and still delivered a surplus of over $200 million. Unsurprisingly, they became the model for how to run a lean, privately financed Games. Obviously the example didn’t translate into further success. 

Other Games have occasionally broken even or come close, but 1984 remained the only universally acknowledged major profit-maker. Then there are the many losers. Most Games since the 1960s have run massive deficits. Here are a few notorious examples, starting with Montreal 1976 that was so over budget that it took the city 30 years to pay off the debt. 

That should have been a cautionary tale for future hosts, but Athens also fell in the trap with billions in overruns and many venues abandoned afterward. In the case of Greece these costs overrun were the brick that broke the camel’s back in exacerbating that country’s later financial strain. In Brazil, Rio 2016 also had some severe cost overruns with many venues falling into disuse within months after the Games and long-term economic benefits failed to materialize. 

Even the careful Japanese and Tokyo 2020 (held in 2021) saw the Games’ costs ballooning due to COVID-19 delays, not to mention the fact that the expected tourism benefits evaporated as spectators were banned. As far as Paris 2024 was concerned the outcomes are still being evaluated, but early analysis shows that hosting the Games was “anything but cheap,” with costs around $8.7 billion. This rather negative outcome explains why fewer and fewer cities want to bid for the Olympics. 

The massive cost overruns are the main reason as Olympics routinely exceed their budgets by huge margins. As a result, cities know they’re taking on a huge financial risk with little chance of profit. Then there are the long-term debt and infrastructure maintenance costs. After the Games end, cities must maintain stadiums, arenas, transportation expansions, athlete villages and special infrastructures like bobsleigh runs that often become “white elephants.” 

There’s also growing public resistance as residents increasingly vote against hosting in referendums because they don’t want higher taxes, displacement, construction disruption and long-term debt. The Colorado population stands as an example for vehemently rejecting the 1976 Winter Games in Denver. 

Finally the IOC has gained a really bad reputation with its high demands for expensive new venues, costly adherence to new specifications, strict branding rules, heavy security, thin financial contribution and its nasty habit of grabbing most of the revenue generated. Next, we’ll focus on some of the most successful Winter Olympic venues in recent history and how each one performed in its own ways…

Olympic introspection… (Part One)

Now that the Winter Olympics are behind us, time for some introspection. As I said many times in this blog, the Olympic Games have morphed into a big business that’s not necessarily making money for everyone. 

As we all suspect, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and major corporate sponsors profit most from the Games, with the IOC generating billions from broadcasting (61%) and marketing (30%). Conversely, host cities and national taxpayers bear the majority of the financial burden, often covering massive, frequently over-budget construction, security, and operational costs. 

Talk about an expensive form of entertainment even if you don’t care to watch it, you’ll be guaranteed to pay for it! Yet, the whole enterprise is pushed – as usual - by our dear politicians. Cities or now, regions still bid despite these huge financial risks for a few simple reasons. It represents a super easy political job as it brings prestige and is seen as a global status symbol. In addition, local developers push hard because they profit regardless of the outcome. 

It’s easy to formulate optimistic economic projections and affordable costs, long before the event and bid committees never hesitate to use inflated forecasts in selling the idea to the public. Consider this, every Olympics since 1960 has gone over budget (except for Los Angeles in 1984), often massively with an average cost overrun at 172%. Montreal took 30 years to pay off its Olympic debt while Rio and Athens were left with abandoned venues and long‑term economic strain.

Did I mention that the jumps in Prelegato for Torino 2006 have become white elephants while Milan rebuilt new jumps in Val di Fieme even further away. Finally, there’s the “legacy” narrative as cities and host venues are promised long‑term benefits that rarely materialize. In the next episode we’ll dig deeper into the Olympics’ financial roller-coaster...

One huge benefit of having no afterlife

Are there people on this planet who passed away and whom you could absolutely not stand? Either they were means to you, had wronged you, abused you or simply couldn’t stand seeing you in their presence. I’m sure you’ll find a bunch if you really try.

Of course, you’ve long pardoned these perpetrators, but still are happy and relieved that you don’t have to see them anymore. Now, imagine a life after death is somehow possible and that, upon resurrecting, you would be liable to run into these awful characters. 

Would you enjoy it? Do you think they would have made any amendments and changes in their behavior? Don’t bet on it! In short, your stay in Paradise would be marred and eternally ruined by these tormentors of yours, isn’t it right? 

So, I just feel blessed that, as I found out, there’s no such thing as an after-life!