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SUSTAINABLE STADIUMS: LILLEHAMMER LEADS THE WAYPicturedA view in 1994 of Hamar Olympic Hall, which hosted speed skating at the Winter Youth Olympic Games Lillehammer 2016inside without using excess energy.These initiatives continue to benefit the local environment today, and also helped the Lillehammer 2016 Organising Committee (LYOGOC) to reach its own sustainability targets, according to LYOGOC CEO Tomas Holmestad.“The main reason that we are also a ‘green Games’ is that we have had almost no environmental impact from building or constructing venues – they are all still standing there from 1994,” he says. “All of the venues in the Lillehammer Olympic Park have been certified with a Norwegian standard, called the Eco-Lighthouse, which shows that they are still at the forefront of sustainability efforts by operating in an environmentally-friendly way. So in 2016, we have still been able to benefit from what was done on sustainability during the 1994 Games.”Indeed, the Olympic Winter Games Lillehammer 1994 set new standards for mega-sports events, ensuring that in future they would be required to include environmental measures as part of their planning. According to Geraint John, a leading architect who has worked on the design of several Olympic stadiums, the Olympic Games have since played a leading role in highlighting the benefits of building sustainable stadiums. He is able to point to many concrete examples from previous Games.“Sydney 2000 was the first Olympic stadium to be designed with an environmental agenda,” he explains. “It used non-toxic materials in its construction, collected the rainwater from the roof to be reused for watering the pitch and cleaning, and was designed to use natural ventilation to offset the use of air conditioning.“London 2012, meanwhile, was generally regarded as the most With modern-day concerns about the environment now front-of-mind, it seems hard to imagine that back in the early 1990s the idea of taking sustainability issues into consideration when constructing sporting venues was seen as novel and unique. But the competition venues that were built for the Olympic Winter Games Lillehammer 1994 were among the first Olympic facilities to be designed in ways that would lessen their impact upon the environment – and are now viewed as trailblazers for sustainable sports stadiums throughout the world.Among the issues that the 1994 Organising Committee considered were how the venues would blend into the surrounding landscape, how construction could take place with as minimal damage to natural surroundings as possible, and how the use of environmentally-friendly materials could be maximised.As well as using predominantly local materials and introducing strict energy-conserving measures, organisers also relocated the speed skating arena in Hamar in order to protect a sanctuary for rare birds, while the bobsleigh track was designed to blend in with the surrounding forest and the Gjøvik Olympic Cavern Hall was built into the side of a mountain in order to help maintain a cool temperature 52 OLYMPIC REVIEW LEGACIES