While the Beijing Olympics encountered freezing temperatures reaching minus-28 degrees at skiing competition venues, the Paralympics are facing the opposite issue — the risk of snow melting due to the arrival of warmer weather.
Skiing on home turf, Chinese para Alpine skier Liu Sitong has won two bronze medals in women's sitting events in Beijing so far, but said the condition of the snow was not as good as at the start of the games.
"You see a lot of athletes have failed to finish. It's because this type of snow is still different to what we're used to skiing on," said Liu.
The rising temperatures prompted organizers to bring forward the super combined competitions by a day to Monday at the Yanqing National Alpine Skiing Center, where temperatures hovered around 5 degrees at the speed finish area.
"Yeah it was warm, like in the Caribbean sea," Swiss Paralympic Alpine skier Theo Gmur joked after completing the men's super-G standing event in the morning.
But Gmur dismissed concerns the weather and snow conditions had any bearing on his performance, saying, "I think it was okay for a super-G because on the top it is pretty speedy, pretty fast, so it was really good to ski."
Gmur, a triple gold medalist at the Pyeongchang Paralympics in 2018, was second at the midway stage but disqualified in the slalom.
Japanese Alpine all-rounder Taiki Morii, who failed to finish in the slalom despite a strong start in the super-G sitting in the morning, said the slope used for technical races had better sunlight than the one for speed races, so "the snow melts then becomes hard."
At the Yanqing Alpine ski course northwest of Beijing, the brown landscape of the Xiaohaituo mountain stands in stark contrast to the artificially-generated snow slopes.
With both the Yanqing and Zhangjiakou competition zones located in some of the driest parts of China, the Beijing Games has depended almost entirely on artificial snow as the real thing can be hard to come by.
The creation of snow is not a new concept for the global sporting event. Around 90% of snow used at the Alpine skiing venue for Pyeongchang 2018 was artificial, with man-made snow also deployed at Vancouver 2010 and Sochi 2014, according to the Chinese state-run Xinhua News Agency.
But while many top-tier Paralympians competing at Yanqing have commented on the hardness and different texture of man-made snow, this has not proven a problem to those who enjoy a challenge.
"It's more aggressive. But I like artificial snow more. If you turn your ski, it grabs you in, and then it goes faster than the normal snow, and I like it to be faster. It's more challenging and the challenging slopes I like," said Dutch Paralympic champion Jeroen Kampschreur.
Slovak visually impaired para Alpine skier Alexandra Rexova, who won gold in the women's super-G together with her guide Eva Trajcikova on Sunday, agreed, saying the snow is "hard, but perfect. We really enjoy the snow in China, we think it's better for us."
Gary Smith, guide to visually impaired British Alpine skier Menna Fitzpatrick, who has taken home silver and bronze so far, said the snow "grips up (and) runs well. You couldn't ask for anything better to race down."