No less than four countries are currently claiming they will soon be home to the new world's biggest indoor snow centre. But which really will be?
To begin with we need to work out which actually is at present, and while it is often wrongly repeated that that's Ski Dubai (actually it's somewhere near the 10th biggest at present), the biggest indoor slopes are actually closer to home in France, Germany and The Netherlands.
There are slopes over 600m long at Amneville in France and at the Alpin Centre in Germany – which may be the world's longest with around a 650mm slope claimed. However as with all ski stats there's another possible stat to use – biggest by area – which is probably Snoworld Landgraaf, former host of indoor FIS World Cup events, which has a 550m long main slope but more width than the two longer areas giving it the biggest area of indoor snow – around 30,000 square metres.
So the four new contenders are each going for one or more of these two records.
An indoor snow centre in Harbin, NE China (artist's impression pictured above), is actually under construction and claiming it will be the world's biggest when it opens in 2017. It appears the claim is based on area as the longest slope is reported to be 500m long, but slope width up to 500m and there are claimed to be up to six slopes each at least 480m long.
Another indoor centre going for the 'area' title is Lorensburg Winter Park, to be located close to the capital Oslo. It will have 36,000 square metres of year-round snow covered slopes, however the Oslo slope will be 505m long so not the longest and the snow area title seems to include some cross country tracks and a ski jump that are also part of the plan. The centre is reported to have got the go ahead for construction but it's unclear if work has begun.
In Dubai, a new indoor snow centre at Medran is reported to be aiming at 700 metres long, which would take the clear 'longest in the world' title. However the UAE does have form for announcing very long slopes (One at 2km long was announced before the economic crash) without them actually being built.
Finally in the US, American Dream Florida is also claiming its indoor snow centre would be the world's largest, although published stats do not so far seem to back that claim up on length or area.
The American Dream franchise is now owned by the Triple Five group which own North America's two biggest malls, including the Mall of America, and biggest tourist attractions, each receiving around 50 million visitors annually. They took over a $4 billion mall in New Jersey which is home to North America's first indoor snow slope which was built in 2008 by one of the project's three previous owners, but has never opened. It's scheduled to now in 2017 with the rest of the huge mall, and Triple Five are already planning the second mall.