Winter Sports: Asian Winter Games in Saudi Arabia in 2029

By Prof Dr Ian Blackshaw

It has been announced that Saudi Arabia will host the Asian Winter Games in 2029.

They will take place in a man-made mountain resort, Trojena, Neom City, which is due to be completed by 2026.

Surrounded by the Sarawat mountains, the venue aims to be a year-round winter sports destination.

There will be natural snow on the mountains, but some artificial snow will also be used. The resort is also planned to have a man-made freshwater lake.

This is the latest sporting event to be hosted by Saudi Arabia, intended, according to critics, to use sport to enhance its reputation following criticism of its human rights record – a case of so-called ‘sports-washing’!

There is also criticism of the event from an environmental point of view.

According to Madeleine Orr of the Sport Ecology Group at Loughborough University, United Kingdom, the event “will be unsustainable as it will require enormous water and energy resources, indoor sport spaces and an insane amount of travel.”

However, the organisers state that the resort is planned to be powered by renewable energy!

In any case, the decision to hold the 2029 Asian Winter Games in Saudi Arabia seems to be a controversial one from several points of view, including environmental ones!

Prof Dr Ian Blackshaw may be contacted by e-mail at ‘This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.’